Rob Collin

Rob W.J. Collin (born in 1978) is a Full Professor in Molecular Therapies for Inherited Retinal Diseases at the Department of Human Genetics and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, in the Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He heads a research team dedicated to find novel molecular therapies for inherited retinal diseases (IRDs). Rob has a MSc degree in Chemistry, and obtained his PhD degree in 2006 in Molecular Animal Physiology. Supported by an Innovation grant (VENI) from the Netherlands Society for Scientific Research, he visited the lab of Prof. Jean Bennett at the Scheie Eye Institute in Philadelphia, a pioneer in gene therapy for retinal diseases. He invented and developed the first splicing therapy for a genetic subtype of congenital blindness, i.e. caused by a recurrent mutation in CEP290 gene. At the moment, his team is actively working on novel therapeutic strategies for various genetic subtypes of IRD.