figure a

Professor in Clinical Chemistry, Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenburg University (b 23 June 1947; q 1975 Lund University, MD), d 26 July 2015)

Isa was born in Stockholm and grew up in Linköping where she graduated from high school in 1966. During her childhood summer holidays, she spent a lot of time in Skåne in southern Sweden where her grandparents lived. She studied medicine at Lund University and earned her master’s degree in 1975. During her study period, she worked on holidays as a junior physician at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in the department of Clinical Chemistry.

She began working full time at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in 1975 and attained a permanent position as a junior physician in Clinical Chemistry in 1976. For 6 months, she also worked in the pediatric department, and for a while, she considered becoming a pediatrician. However, in 1981 she became a specialist in clinical chemistry. In 1982, she finished her doctoral thesis titled “Thymine 7-hydroxylase-a 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase”. From 1985, she was an associate senior consultant and from 1992 a senior consultant at the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. In 1984, she became associate professor in clinical chemistry and—although she earned the position much earlier—in 2009 she became professor in clinical chemistry at the Department of Clinical Chemistry and Transfusion Medicine at the Institute of Biomedicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University. Then, although she became Professor Emerita in June 2014, she continued as senior consultant at the hospital.

Isa made major contributions to the fields of mitochondrial disease, fatty acid oxidation defects, and several other fields of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) research, attested to by the >5300 citations her papers have received. Perhaps the work that has had the largest impact was the work she authored with Sven Lindstedt, published in 1992, demonstrating the dramatic efficacy of 2-(2-nitro-4-trifluoromethylbenzoyl)-1,3-cyclohexanedione (NTBC) in treating tyrosinemia. Those of us who remember the miserable lives of children with this disorder in the 1980s and the wonderful response they had to treatment with NTBC will always be grateful to Isa and Sven for undertaking the studies that paved the way for treatment of our patients.

Isa was an enthusiastic member of the SSIEM. She was a regular attender at SSIEM meetings, organized a meeting in Gothenburg in 1997, and did a great deal to encourage and help younger members of the society. We will miss her greatly.

During her study time in Lund, Isa met the man who would become her husband, Anders Markstedt, who studied economics at Lund University. In the mid-1970s, they bought their house in Billdal, in the close outskirts of Gothenburg, where they lived together until Anders’ death in December 2009. In their home in Billdal—with a wonderful garden so enjoyed by Isa (although she was not so fond of gardening), they raised their two children. Hans (b. 1975) and Lena (b. 1977). After her husband’s death, Isa lived alone in the house and loved visits from her three grandchildren, Max, Siri, and Filip, of whom she was extremely proud.

As Isa’s colleagues in Göteborg and in the international IEM community, we extend our deepest sympathies to all her family and friends.