Dr. Monica Akula is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, MA, USA. She earned her B.S. in Neuroscience & Psychology at the University of Toronto and her Ph.D. in McMaster University, in 2011 and 2021, respectively. Her research keywords include ophthalmology, gene therapy, neurodegeneration, pathology, and animal models.
Margaret M. DeAngelis is currently a Professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine and has focused her career on vision research since 1999 when she received a post-doctoral fellowship training grant on macular degeneration as part of the Molecular Basis of Eye Disease program at Harvard Medical School. Working in collaboration with clinicians throughout her career, she has recruited, ascertained, and developed large patient populations of both families and unrelated case controls to study the genetic and epidemiologic underpinnings of both common and rare ophthalmic conditions. She serves on the senior executive committee/steering committee for the International AMD Genomics Consortium sponsored by NEI/NIH. She is also committed to teaching and mentoring the next generation of scientists and clinician-scientists, and she is a mentor and advisor to undergraduate, graduate, medical students, fellows, and junior faculty. She has over 60 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and reviews. She serves on several editorial boards and national and international grant review panels. Her work has been generously funded by the NEI; The ALSAM Foundation; The Skaggs Research Foundation; The Bank of America/Thome Memorial Fund; the Carl Reeves Foundation; the Macular Degeneration Foundation; and the Center of Aging, Division of Geriatrics, the University of Utah.
Dr. Neena B. Haider received a Ph.D. from the
University of Iowa in Genetics, part of the human genome project, and was
involved in identifying over a dozen human disease-associated genes. She worked
as an Associate Professor at Harvard University from July 2011 to April 2023.
She directed a cutting-edge genetics and gene therapy laboratory at Harvard
Medical School, developing and identifying viable therapeutic options for
inherited blindness, such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and aged macular
degeneration (AMD), bringing a product from bench to clinic. She has been
successfully funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) continuously for
over two decades and has also secured funds from private foundations and
pharmaceutical companies. The Haider team is the first to develop a novel
broad-spectrum gene therapy to treat multiple forms of blindness. These
breakthrough mutation-agnostic gene therapies will have a global impact and
transform the gene therapy space. Dr. Haider has a U.S. patent issued and
several FDA approvals for orphan disease designations (ODD) gene therapy and
EMS approval in Europe for broad-spectrum gene therapies. She has served in
numerous leadership roles including with The National Institute of Health
(NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, and with members of Congress to
provide direction and insight on research impacting human health.
