In our second episode of I/O, we speak with three leaders in ocular genetics about the burgeoning future of gene therapies, challenges the field faces, how to promote innovation amongst learners, and the value of ocular genetics to patients and their families.
Dr. Ian MacDonald is an ophthalmologist and clinical geneticist at the University of Alberta. He began his career as an Ontario Ministry of Health career Scientist, and then moved to the University of Alberta where he served four terms as the Dept. Chair of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences. He then served as the Branch Chief of Ophthalmic Genetics and Visual Function at the National Eye Institute of the NIH before returning for a fourth term as Department Chair. In 2021, he was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian College of Medical Geneticists, and was invited by the International Society for Genetic Eye Disease and Retinoblastoma to give the Franceschetti Lecture in 2021. His primary research interests are in heritable ocular disorders, particularly in the immune mechanisms that are triggered in viral vector-mediated gene therapies and in gene therapies for choiroideremia. The two main projects currently being worked on are antisense oligonucleotide suppression and a synonymous variant in the CHM gene that has variable effects in two siblings.
Dr. Elise Héon is an ophthalmologist and was previously the inaugural holder of the Mira Godard Chair in Vision Research and Chief of Ophthalmology at The Hospital for Sick Children. She is the Henry Brent Chair in Innovative Pediatric Ophthalmology at SickKids, a Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Toronto, and the Director of the Ocular Genetics Program at SickKids. She and her research group are renowned worldwide for her expertise in inherited retinal disorders. In particular, her research group has been particularly successful in using genome sequencing to detect disease-causing variants in IRDs. Her group also has an interest in identifying small molecules that may improve patient outcomes.
Dr. Brian Ballios is a staff ophthalmologist at Sunnybrook, and an assistant professor at the Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences at the University of Toronto. He completed a clinical fellowship in Inherited Retinal Diseases at Mass Eye and Ear, and completed his MD/PhD at the University of Toronto in the lab of Dr. Derek van der Kooy. His doctoral work focused on the transplantation of stem cells for the treatment of retinal degeneration. His research involves combining his cross-disciplinary interests in stem cell biology and tissue engineering to treat retinal disease.