Sara L. (Sally) Tobin

Administrative Appointments

• Principal, Twisted Ladder Media, Inc. (2000 - present)
• Ethicist and Patient Advocate, General Clinical Research Center (2003 - present)

Honors and Awards

• Member, Committee of Visitors, National Science Foundation: Plant Genome Program (2004)
• Review Panelist, National Science Foundation: Advance Program, Institutional Transformation, STEM Program (2001-2004)
• Study Section Member, Ad Hoc, National Institutes of Health: SBIR Program (1994-2001)
• Visiting Professorship for Women Awardee, National Science Foundation (1993-1995)
• Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, American Cancer Society, California Division (1981-1982)

Professional Education

Community & International Work

• Institutional Review Board 

Web Site Links

• Biomedical Ethics Faculty

Research Interests

Tobin is a Senior Research Scholar in the Program for Genomics, Ethics, and Society at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. She obtained her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the University of Washington and did postdoctoral research in Genetics at the University of California, Berkeley and in Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco. She became a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in 1983, where she established her independent research laboratory and taught basic genetics, recombinant DNA, molecular diagnosis, and ethical issues to first year medical students. Her research contributions have been published in prestigious journals such as Cell, Nature, Genes & Development, Neuron, and Journal of Cell Biology. In 1996 she moved to the Program for Genomics, Ethics, and Society at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, where she has participated in Working Groups on genetic testing for susceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer and to Alzheimer disease.

Projects

With her collaborator, graphic designer Ann Boughton, Tobin has completed the production of three educational multimedia CD-ROM discs about the genetic revolution in medical care sparked by the rapid advances in our knowledge about the human genome. One is currently commercially available through Twisted Ladder Media, and is entitled: "The New Genetics: Medicine and the Human Genome. Molecular Concepts, Applications, and Ramifications." The features and content of this interactive educational program are listed at the website: http://www.twistedladdermedia.com.

In addition, Tobin and Boughton have collaborated on educational websites on inherited risk of breast cancer and on hereditary colorectal cancer with the Stanford Cancer Genetics Clinic. With the University of Louisville, the Hastings Center in New York, and the University of Michigan, Tobin has also been involved in development and delivery of a curriculum...

Publications

• Initiating ocular proteomics for cataloging bovine retinal proteins: microanalytical techniques permit the identification of proteins derived from a novel photoreceptor preparation. Nishizawa Y, Komori N, Usukura J, Jackson KW, Tobin SL, Matsumoto H. Exp Eye Res. 1999; 69 (2): 195-212
• Defining dementia: social and historical background of Alzheimer disease. Fox PJ, Kelly SE, Tobin SL. Genet Test. 1999; 3 (1): 13-9
• The genetics of Alzheimer disease and the application of molecular tests. Tobin SL, Chun N, Powell TM, McConnell LM. Genet Test. 1999; 3 (1): 37-45
• Phosrestide-1, a peptide derived from the Drosophila photoreceptor protein phosrestin I, is a potent substrate for Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II from rat brain. Kahn ES, Kinumi T, Tobin SL, Matsumoto H. Comp Biochem Physiol B Biochem Mol Biol. 1998; 119 (4): 739-46
• Sonchus yellow net rhabdovirus nuclear viroplasms contain polymerase-associated proteins. Martins CR, Johnson JA, Lawrence DM, Choi TJ, Pisi AM, Tobin SL, Lapidus D, Wagner JD, Ruzin S, McDonald K, Jackson AO. J Virol. 1998; 72 (7): 5669-79