Member profile
Geoff is
a clinical toxicologist and emergency physician at the Calvary Mater
Newcastle Hospital and Principal Research Fellow at the Menzies School
of Health Research. He acts as a consultant to the NSW poison centre
and clinical pharmacologist at the Children's Hospital Westmead. He is
a clinician researcher with an interest in clinical toxinology,
toxicology and pharmacology. He completed a BSc with majors in physics
and biochemistry in 1990 and then a MBBS in 1994. He trained in
emergency medicine as well as clinical toxicology/pharmacology, and
became a fellow of the College for Emergency Medicine Australasia in
2002. He was awarded an MD in 2004 on Data collection in Clinical
Toxinology. He was awarded an NHMRC Clinical Career Development Award
(2005-2009) to "conduct research throughout Australia on terrestrial
and marine envenoming in humans, including clinical effects and
potential treatments." He currently conducts multicentre research on
snake bites, redback spider antivenom, pharmacokinetics and
pharmacodynamics of drugs in overdose as part of the Modeling and
Simulation in Toxicology Group and studies of ECG changes in drug
toxicity.
He was the 2002 Young Medical Researcher of the
Year (Hunter Medical Research Institute) and finalist for the Eureka
Skeptics Award for work on white-tail spider bites which was presented
on Catalyst, ABC in 2004. In 2005 he was made a NSW Young Tall Poppy
and won the Morson Taylor Research Award. In 2007 he was awarded a
Cosmos Bright Sparks Award - Top 10 young scientists in Australia and
was featured on Catalyst in early 2008. He was awarded the Medical
Journal of Australia/Wyeth Research Award for the best published
research in the journal in 2006 - a randomized controlled trial of hot
water immersion for blue bottle stings and won the inaugural prize for
best scientific presentation at the European Association of Poison
Centres and Clinical Toxicologists Meeting in 2008.
Professional Society Memberships
Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Toxicology
International Society of Toxinology
European Association of Poison Centres and Clinical Toxicologists
Editorial Boards
Assistant Editor (Original Research and Toxicology), Emergency Medicine Australasia 2002-
Editorial Board: Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 2004-
Editorial Board: South East Asia Region Office WHO quarterly Newsletter 2004
Selected publications
- Isbister GK, Gray MR. A prospective study of 750 definite spider bites with expert spider identification. QJM 2002;95(11):723-31
- Isbister
GK, Gray MR. White-tail spider-bite: A prospective study of 130
definite bites by Lampona species. Med J Aust 2003;179:199-202.
- Isbister
GK, Friberg LE, Hackett LP, Duffull SB. Pharmacokinetics of quetiapine
in overdose and the effect of activated charcoal. Clin Pharm Ther 2007
Jun;81(6):821-7
- Isbister
GK, Downes F, Sibbritt D, Dawson AH, Whyte IM. Aspiration pneumonitis
in an overdose population: frequency, predictors and outcomes. Crit
Care Med 2004 Jan;32(1):88-93
- Isbister GK. Necrotic arachnidism: the mythology of a modern plague. Lancet; 2004
- Isbister
GK, Brown SGA, Miller M, Tankel A, MacDonald E, Stokes B, Ellis R,
Nagree Y, Wilkes GJ, James R, Short A, Holdgate A. A randomised
controlled trial of intramuscular versus intravenous antivenom for
latrodectism - the RAVE study. QJM. 2008 Jul;101(7):557-65
Itinerary - 2009 ASCEPT guest lecturer, the British Toxicology Society
17 March: Department of Cardiac and Vascular Sciences, St. George's University of London
18-19 March: Medical Toxicology Centre, Wolfson Unit, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne
20 March: University of Birmingham
22-25
March: BTS Annual Congress, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL,
UK; ASCEPT Lecturer: Snake bite: insights into toxins and human
behaviour; Sunday 22nd March 1730
26 March: School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool
27 March: Poisons Centre Unit, Edinburgh
30 March: University of Aberdeen