Marlin Touma
Associate Professor-in-Residence, Pediatrics, University of California Los Angeles
Biography
Marlin Touma is an Asoociate Professor-In-Residence in the David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and the Director of UCLA Congenital Heart Defects Research Program. She joined the pediatric faculty in 2011 after completing her fellowship program in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard University. Dr. Touma received her medical education from Damascus University and obtained her PhD in Molecular, Cell & Integrative Physiology as an UCLA-STAR fellow in 2015. Dr. Touma is the founder and principal invistigator of the Neonatal/Congenital Heart Laboratory and BioCore for Congenital Heart Defects Research at UCLA. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards including an Outstanding Research Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, Career Development Awards from the NIH/Child Health Research Center and American Heart Association, and the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Gene Discovery Award. As an early career investigator, Dr. Touma was awarded the David Geffen School of Medicine Research Innovation Award, and the High Priority “Bridge Fund” and an R01 from NIH/NHLBI. Dr. Touma is an awarded finalist of the 2021 Mid-Career Investigator (MCI) Research Scholarship Award from the International Society for Heart Research (ISHR)-North America Section (NAS). Dr. Touma’s clinical practice is located in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA. She provide prenatal consultation services and perinatal care for affected families and newborn infants with prematurity complications and congenital heart defects.
Publications
- Mehta Z, Touma M. Post-Transcriptional Modification by Alternative Splicing and Pathogenic Splicing Variants in Cardiovascular Development and Congenital Heart Defects.. International journal of molecular sciences, 2023.
- Trieu T, Mach P, Bunn K, Huang V, Huang J, Chow C, Nakano H, Fajardo VM, Touma M, Ren S, Wang Y, Nakano A. A novel murine model of atrial fibrillation by diphtheria toxin-induced injury.. Frontiers in physiology, 2022.
- Yang JO, Shaybekyan H, Zhao Y, Kang X, Fishbein GA, Khanlou N, Alejos JC, Halnon N, Satou G, Biniwale R, Lee H, Van Arsdell G, Nelson SF, Touma M, UCLA Clinical Genomics Center, UCLA Congenital Heart Defects-BioCore Faculty. Case Report: Whole Exome Sequencing Identifies Compound Heterozygous Variants in TSFM Gene Causing Juvenile Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.. Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine, 2022.
- Zhao Y, Wang LK, Eskin A, Kang X, Fajardo VM, Mehta Z, Pineles S, Schmidt RJ, Nagiel A, Satou G, Garg M, Federman M, Reardon LC, Lee SL, Biniwale R, Grody WW, Halnon N, Khanlou N, Quintero-Rivera F, Alejos JC, Nakano A, Fishbein GA, Van Arsdell GS, Nelson SF, Touma M. Recessive ciliopathy mutations in primary endocardial fibroelastosis: a rare neonatal cardiomyopathy in a case of Alstrom syndrome.. Journal of molecular medicine (Berlin, Germany), 2021.
- Yokota T, Li J, Huang J, Xiong Z, Zhang Q, Chan T, Ding Y, Rau C, Sung K, Ren S, Kulkarni R, Hsiai T, Xiao X, Touma M, Minamisawa S, Wang Y. p38 Mitogen-activated protein kinase regulates chamber-specific perinatal growth in heart.. The Journal of clinical investigation, 2020.
- Touma M. COVID-19: molecular diagnostics overview.. Journal of molecular medicine (Berlin, Germany), 2020.
- Zhao Y, Kang X, Barsegian A, He J, Guzman A, Lau RP, Biniwale R, Wadhra M, Reemtsen B, Garg M, Halnon N, Quintero-Rivera F, Grody WW, UCLA Congenital Heart Defects BioCore Faculty, Van Arsdell G, Nelson SF, Touma M. Gene-environment regulation of chamber-specific maturation during hypoxemic perinatal circulatory transition.. Journal of molecular medicine (Berlin, Germany), 2020.
- Spyropoulos F, Vitali SH, Touma M, Rose CD, Petty CR, Levy P, Kourembanas S, Christou H. Echocardiographic markers of pulmonary hemodynamics and right ventricular hypertrophy in rat models of pulmonary hypertension.. Pulmonary circulation, 2020.
- Kang X, Zhao Y, Van Arsdell G, Nelson SF, Touma M. Ppp1r1b-lncRNA inhibits PRC2 at myogenic regulatory genes to promote cardiac and skeletal muscle development in mouse and human.. RNA (New York, N.Y.), 2020.
- Zhao Y, Kang X, Gao F, Guzman A, Lau RP, Biniwale R, Wadehra M, Reemtsen B, Garg M, Halnon N, Quintero-Rivera F, Van Arsdell G, Coppola G, Nelson SF, Touma M, UCLA Congenital Heart Defects BioCore Faculty. Gene-environment regulatory circuits of right ventricular pathology in tetralogy of fallot.. Journal of molecular medicine (Berlin, Germany), 2019.
- Touma M. Fetal Mouse Cardiovascular Imaging Using a High-frequency Ultrasound (30/45MHZ) System.. Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE, 2018.
- Touma M, Kang X, Gao F, Zhao Y, Cass AA, Biniwale R, Xiao X, Eghbali M, Coppola G, Reemtsen B, Wang Y. Wnt11 regulates cardiac chamber development and disease during perinatal maturation.. JCI insight, 2017.
- Touma M, Reemtsen B, Halnon N, Alejos J, Finn JP, Nelson SF, Wang Y. A Path to Implement Precision Child Health Cardiovascular Medicine.. Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine, 2017.
- Touma M, Kang X, Zhao Y, Cass AA, Gao F, Biniwale R, Coppola G, Xiao X, Reemtsen B, Wang Y. Decoding the Long Noncoding RNA During Cardiac Maturation: A Roadmap for Functional Discovery.. Circulation. Cardiovascular genetics, 2016.
- Ganguly A, Touma M, Thamotharan S, De Vivo DC, Devaskar SU. Maternal Calorie Restriction Causing Uteroplacental Insufficiency Differentially Affects Mammalian Placental Glucose and Leucine Transport Molecular Mechanisms.. Endocrinology, 2016.
- Lluri G, Huang V, Touma M, Liu X, Harmon AW, Nakano A. Hematopoietic progenitors are required for proper development of coronary vasculature.. Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology, 2015.
- Briot A, Jaroszewicz A, Warren CM, Lu J, Touma M, Rudat C, Hofmann JJ, Airik R, Weinmaster G, Lyons K, Wang Y, Kispert A, Pellegrini M, Iruela-Arispe ML. Repression of Sox9 by Jag1 is continuously required to suppress the default chondrogenic fate of vascular smooth muscle cells.. Developmental cell, 2014.
- Nakashima Y, Yanez DA, Touma M, Nakano H, Jaroszewicz A, Jordan MC, Pellegrini M, Roos KP, Nakano A. Nkx2-5 suppresses the proliferation of atrial myocytes and conduction system.. Circulation research, 2014.
- Xiao XG, Touma M, Wang Y. Decoding the noncoding transcripts in human heart failure.. Circulation, 2014.
- Touma M, Joshi M, Connolly MC, Grant PE, Hansen AR, Khwaja O, Berry GT, Kinney HC, Poduri A, Agrawal PB. Whole genome sequencing identifies SCN2A mutation in monozygotic twins with Ohtahara syndrome and unique neuropathologic findings.. Epilepsia, 2013.
- Christou H, Reslan OM, Mam V, Tanbe AF, Vitali SH, Touma M, Arons E, Mitsialis SA, Kourembanas S, Khalil RA. Improved pulmonary vascular reactivity and decreased hypertrophic remodeling during nonhypercapnic acidosis in experimental pulmonary hypertension.. American journal of physiology. Lung cellular and molecular physiology, 2012.