Ms Katie Christie, BSc (Hons)
Biomedical Sciences Research Institute, Ulster University
Katie completed her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Genetics (BSc Hons) at Newcastle University in 2015. During her undergraduate degree she was awarded a competitive grant from the UK Genetics Society to undertake a summer placement at the Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, under the supervision of Dr Helen Phillips. The main focus of this placement was to investigate the role of Rho Kinase in cardiomyocytes during heart development. Katie’s final year dissertation project was carried out at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research (NICR) Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with Prof Olaf Heidenreich, where she explored the regulators of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia propagation. Her interest in personalised medicine encouraged her to pursue a PhD at Ulster University with the Vision Science Research Group. The main aim of her doctoral research is to elucidate the potential of personalised CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutic systems to treat genetic eye diseases.