Dr David Courtney

Dr David Courtney BSc (Hons), PhD

Biomedical Sciences Research Institute, Ulster University

David graduated from the Ulster University with first class honours in Biomedical Sciences in 2012, during which time he completed his placement year in GlaxoSmithKline UK in Stevenage. He has recently completed a PhD within the Vision Science research group under the supervision of Professor Tara Moore. His research involves the development of personalised medicine for hereditary corneal dystrophies with the main focus on Meesmann’s Epithelial Corneal Dystrophy and TGFBI-Arg124Cys associated Lattice Corneal Dystrophy Type I. This is carried out through the use of allele-specific short-interfering RNAs (siRNAs), with the most potent and allele-specific siRNA identified on a mutation-by-mutation basis. His research also aims to investigate potential delivery methods for these siRNAs to the cornea.

During his PhD David has presented his work at a number of conferences including: BIT’s World Gene Convention 2013, Haikou, China, the 2015 CRISPR/Cas9 Revolution at Cold Spring Harbour, USA and EMBO 2015, UK. He has been awarded a number of prizes for his research to date and has published a number of papers in IOVS, Gene Therapy and BJO.

Since completing his PhD David has taken up a Postdoctoral Associate position within the Moore lab, where his research is focused on the use of a novel gene editing system known as CRISPR/Cas9 to develop personalised therapies for corneal dystrophies. It is hoped that this research could lead to the permanent resolution of the disease phenotype associated with a number of blinding corneal disorders.