Isaac Pence, Ph.D.

Isaac Pence, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Internal Medicine.

Prior to UT Southwestern, Dr. Pence completed a Whitaker International Postdoctoral Fellowship at Imperial College London in the group of Dr. Molly Stevens, developing novel optical and computational approaches for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He completed further postdoctoral training in the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School under Dr. Conor Evans. There, Dr. Pence worked on applications of coherent Raman imaging to visualize and quantify the pharmacokinetics of topically applied drugs and characterize tissue response to treatment, created sparse spectral methods for stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, and constructed a portable coherent Raman imaging system for multimodal in vivo cutaneous imaging.

Dr. Pence received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University under the guidance of Dr. Anita Mahadevan-Jansen. During his graduate work, he developed and translated label-free noninvasive optical tools for surgical guidance and Raman spectroscopic characterization of numerous tissues and diseases including inflammatory bowel disease and skin cancer.

He has demonstrated a commitment to translating technologies and to research excellence through contributions to numerous funded research grant and individual fellowship awards. 

Dr. Pence's research group is focused on the development of novel optical tools for noninvasive characterization of disease and quantitative longitudinal monitoring of therapeutic response. This work lies at the intersection of translational biophotonics, computational analysis, and clinical medicine, and his group is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture while training and mentoring the next generation of biomedical engineers and scientists.

Undergraduate

Vanderbilt University (2010), Engineering

Graduate School

Vanderbilt University (2012), Science

Graduate School

Vanderbilt University (2016), Philosophy

• Cutaneous manifestations of systemic disease
• Development and application of multivariate models and computational analysis
• Instrumentation development and control
• Raman Spectroscopy and coherent Raman imaging
• Translational biophotonics

Featured Publications

Coupling Lipid Nanoparticle Structure and Automated Single-Particle Composition Analysis to Design Phospholipase-Responsive Nanocarriers.

Barriga HMG, Pence IJ, Holme MN, Doutch JJ, Penders J, Nele V, Thomas MR, Carroni M, Stevens MM, Adv Mater 2022 Jul 34 26 e2200839

Translational biophotonics with Raman imaging: clinical applications and beyond.

Pence IJ, Evans CL, Analyst 2021 Oct 146 21 6379-6393

Single Particle Automated Raman Trapping Analysis.

Penders J, Pence IJ, Horgan CC, Bergholt MS, Wood CS, Najer A, Kauscher U, Nagelkerke A, Stevens MM, Nat Commun 2018 10 9 1 4256

Discrimination of malignant and normal kidney tissue with short wave infrared dispersive Raman spectroscopy.

Haifler M, Pence I, Sun Y, Kutikov A, Uzzo RG, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Patil CA, J Biophotonics 2018 06 11 6 e201700188

Clinical characterization of in vivo inflammatory bowel disease with Raman spectroscopy.

Pence IJ, Beaulieu DB, Horst SN, Bi X, Herline AJ, Schwartz DA, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Biomed Opt Express 2017 Feb 8 2 524-535

Clinical instrumentation and applications of Raman spectroscopy.

Pence I, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Chem Soc Rev 2016 Apr 45 7 1958-79

Assessing variability of in vivo tissue Raman spectra.

Pence IJ, Vargis E, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Appl Spectrosc 2013 Jul 67 7 789-800

Cryoneurolysis with Injectable Ice Slurry Modulates Mechanical Skin Pain.

Moradi Tuchayi S, Wang Y, Khodorova A, Pence IJ, Evans CL, Anderson RR, Lerner EA, Woolf CJ, Garibyan L, J Invest Dermatol 2022 Aug

Full Recovery after Multiple Treatments with Injectable Ice Slurry.

Moradi Tuchayi S, Wang Y, Pence IJ, Fast A, Stemmer-Rachamimov A, Evans CL, Anderson RR, Garibyan L, J Pain Res 2022 15 2905-2910

Single Particle Automated Raman Trapping Analysis of Breast Cancer Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles as Cancer Biomarkers.

Penders J, Nagelkerke A, Cunnane EM, Pedersen SV, Pence IJ, Coombes RC, Stevens MM, ACS Nano 2021 Nov

• Vanderbilt University Global Health Case Competition Finalist
  (2016)
• Whitaker International Scholar Postdoctoral Fellow
  (2016-2018)
• SPIE Newport Research Excellence Award, SPIE Photonics West
  (2014)
• NIH Ruth L. Kirschetein National Research Service Award Predoctoral Fellowship
  (2013-2016)