Dr. Howard Lipton is Professor, Departments of Neurology and Rehabilitation and Microbiology and Immunology. He is the Director of Basic Science Research in the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation.
Dr. Lipton received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska School of Medicine in 1964. He served a 1-year straight medicine internship at the Ohio State University Hospitals and completed his Neurology Residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1970 He then was a Felllow in Neurovirology under Richard T. Johnson, M.D. at The Johns Hopkins University from 1970-1972.
Dr. Lipton was formerly Vice-Chair of the Departments of Neurology at Northwestern University Medical School and the Colorado University School of Medicine as well as Chair of the Department of Neurology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He held named professorships at Northwestern University and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Lipton has conducted Neurovirology research that has received uninterrupted funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 32 years as well as funding from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS). He has trained over 20 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.
Dr. Lipton is certified in Neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Lipton’s research has focused on one of the few available experimental animal models of virus-induced demyelination, Theiler’s virus infection in mice, which provides a highly relevant experimental analog for multiple sclerosis. Dr. Lipton was the first researcher to develop this model system that is now being investigated by over 30 research laboratories worldwide. This work suggests that multiple sclerosis may be due to a chronic central nervous system virus infection resulting in immunopathologic damage to myelin. As the result of his research, Dr. Lipton has been awarded the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholar Award and an NIH Jacob K. Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003. He has also served on a number of NIH study sections, local and national multiple sclerosis committees, the Board of Scientific Advisors for Sterling Drug Company, and on editorial boards of the Annals of Neurology, Archives of Virology, Journal of Neurovirology and Journal of Virology. Dr. Lipton has published 145 peer-reviewed scientific articles and edited a book on Neurovirology.
Lipton HL, Kumar ASM, Hertzler S, Reddi HV (2006) Minireview: Theiler's Murine Encephalomyelitis Virus Carbohydrate Co-Receptor Use Influences Central Nervous System Cellular Host Range of the Infection. Glycoconjuate Journal 23:39-49.
Rubio N, Sanz-Rodriguez, F, Lipton HL. (2006) Theiler's virus induces the MIP-2 chemokine (CXCL2) in astrocytes from genetically susceptible but not from resistant mouse strains. Cell Immunol 239:31-40.
Kincaid O, Lipton HL. (2006) Viral myelitis. Current Neurol Neurosci Reports 6:469-474.
Groothuis DR, Vavra MW, Schlageter KE, Kang EW-R, Itskovich A, Hertzler S, Allen CV, Lipton HL. (2007) Efflux of drugs and solutes from the brain: The interactive roles of diffusional transcapillary transport,bulk flow and capillary transporters. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab 27:43-56.
Lipton HL, Kumar ASM, Hertzler S. (2007) Cardioviruses: Encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) and Theiler's murine encephalomyeltis virus (TMEV). In, The Mouse in Biomedical Research, 2e, (J Fox, S. Barthold, M.l. Davisson, C. Newcomer, F. Quimby and A. Smith, Eds). Chapter 12. Elsevier/Academic Press, San Diego, 311-323.
Shenkar R, Changbin S, Check I, Lipton HL, Rowley A, Awad, IA. (2007) Inflammatory hypothesis in the pathogenesis of cerebral cavernous malformations. J Neurosurg. 61:693-703.
Lipton HL, Liang Z, Son K-N, Hertzler S. (2007) A specific viral cause of multiple sclerosis: 1 disease, 1 virus. Ann Neurol. 61:514-523.
Son, K-N, Becker R, Kallio, P, Lipton HL. (2008) Theiler’s virus-induced apoptosis in M1-D macrophages is Bax mediated through the mitochondrial pathway, resulting in the loss of infectious virus: A model for persistence in the mouse central nervous system. J Virol. 82:4502-4510.
Lipton HL. Vilyuisk human encephalomyelitis virus. (2008) Reviews Med Virology 18:347-352.
Liang Z, Kumar ASM, Jones MS, Knowles NJ, Lipton HL. (2008) Phylogenetic analysis of the species Theilovirus: Emerging murine and human pathogens. J. Virol. (In Press)
Fan J, Son, K.-N., Arslan S.Y, Liang Z, Lipton, HL. (2009) The Theiler’s murine encephalomyelitis virus leader protein is the only nonstructural protein tested that induces apoptosis when transfected into mammalian cells.J Virol. 83:6546-6553
Son, K.-N., Pugazhenthi, S., Lipton, HL. (2009) Activation of tumor suppressor protein p53 is required for Theiler’s murine encephalomyelitis virus-induced apoptosis in M1-D macrophages. J Virol. 83:10770-10777.