We have a team with the expertise and drive to deliver.
Management
Scientific Founders
Board of Directors
Scientific Advisory Board
Prof. José Alain Sahel
Co-founder
José-Alain Sahel studied medicine at the Medical School of Paris University and ophthalmology at the University of Strasbourg and at Harvard University (Boston-Cambridge, USA).
He was appointed Professor of Ophthalmology at the University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg. Currently, José-Alain Sahel is Professor of Ophthalmology at Pierre and Marie Curie University Medical School, Paris, France and Cumberlege Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the Institute of Ophthalmology-University College London, UK. He chairs the Departments of Ophthalmology at the Quinze-Vingts National Eye Hospital and at the Rothschild Ophthalmology Foundation. In 2016, he was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School and The Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair.
The primary focus of Sahel’s fundamental and clinical research is the understanding of the mechanisms associated with retinal degeneration, together with the conception, development and evaluation of innovative treatments for retinal diseases, with a special focus on genetic rod-cone dystrophies (e.g. neuroprotection, stem cells, gene therapy, pharmacology, and artificial retina).
José-Alain Sahel scientific group (with Saddek Mohand-Said and Thierry Léveillard) was the first to hypothesize and demonstrate that rod photoreceptors produce a protein that rescues cone photoreceptors, thereby maintaining light-adapted and high-resolution vision.
Prof. Jean Bennett
USA
Professor of Cell & Developmental Biology – Co-Director of Center for Advanced Retinal & Ocular Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Jean Bennett, MD, Ph.D., is the F.M. Kirby Professor of Ophthalmology, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, and Co-Director of the Center for Advanced Retinal and Ocular Therapeutics (CAROT) at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She has developed gene transfer approaches to test treatment strategies for retinal degenerative and ocular neovascular diseases, to elucidate retinal differentiation pathways and to identify pathogenetic mechanisms that lead to blindness.
Her research with Dr. Albert Maguire, conducted at UPenn over the past 25 years, has established the scientific underpinnings which made it possible to test the first potential definitive retinal gene therapy treatment for patients with blinding retinal degenerations. Dr. Bennett is the Scientific Director of gene therapy clinical trials for a congenital blindness. These studies, carried out at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and sponsored by Spark Therapeutics, led to the approval of the first gene therapy drug (Luxturna) for a genetic disease in the USA. This is also the first gene therapy drug to be approved worldwide.Dr. Bennett’s Center continues to strive to develop treatments that could be applied to other genetic and acquired blinding conditions.
Prof. Paul Sieving
USA
Professor of Ophthalmology at University of California Davis School of Medicine and the former Director of the US National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health
Dr. Paul A. Sieving is an ophthalmologist with extensive expertise in inherited retinal diseases (IRD). He served as Director of the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health for nearly 20 years where he led the research programs to advance national vision health. Dr. Sieving previously was the Paul R. Lichter Professor of Ophthalmic Genetics at the University of Michigan Medical School for 17 years and founded the Centre for Retinal and Macular Degeneration. Dr. Sieving received his M.D. from the University of Illinois where he trained in ophthalmology and obtained a Ph.D. in bioengineering.
He has developed and led translational therapy programs for IRD conditions using human ocular gene therapy and neurotrophic factor implants.Dr. Sieving has received prestigious awards including the Società Oftalmologica Italiana Honorary Award in Ophthalmology in 2016.
He holds elected membership in the National Academy of Medicine USA and the German National Academy of Science. Since leaving the NIH in 2019, he founded the new Centre for Ocular Regenerative Therapy “CORT” at the University of California Davis.
Prof. Botond Roska
Switzerland
Founding Director, Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB), Basel, Switzerland
Prof. Roska, MD, Ph.D., has over 15 years of experience studying neuronal activity and neurodevelopmental diseases of the retina.In 2018, together with Prof. Hendrik Scholl, hefounded the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel. Since 2014, he has been a Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and since 2019 at the Faculty of Science at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He earned a medical degree at the Semmelweis Medical School in Hungary in 1995, before completing his Ph.D in Neurobiology at the University of California Berkeley in 2002 and becoming a Harvard Society Fellow in Genetics in 2005.
Prof. Roska is an neuroscientist and molecular geneticist who has made significant scientific contributions to his field, including working in collaboration with Prof. Jose Sahel and his research group to study retinal cell-type-targeted approaches to restoring visual activity in patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa patients.
He has received a number of awards for his research, including the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, and most recently, the Körber European Science Prize and the Sanford and Susan Greenberg End Blindness Visionary Prize.
Prof. Elias Arnér
Sweden
Head and Professor of Biochemistry Division, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Dr. Elias Arnér is Professor in Biochemsitry at the Karolinksa Institute in Sweden, and is an expert in selenoproteins and the mammalian thioredoxin system. Elias completed his MD and Ph.D. at the Karolinska institute, and was Dean of postgraduate education at the university 2005-2007, before becoming Professor in Biochemistry in 2009. Elias’ Ph.D. thesis was on nucleotide metabolism and nucleoside analogs as therapeutics, and his post doc work into selenoproteins, and specifically thioredoxin reductase, came to form the main line of research in his laboratory.
His expertise in his field led to him being appointed in 2020 as the Head of Department at the Department of Selenoprotein Research at the National Institute of Oncology in Hungary. Elias has authored over 150 publications and in 2019 was appointed as Board Member of the Council for Medicine and Health at the Swedish Research.
Prof. Pierre Chambon
France
Professor of Molecular Genetics at the Institute of Advanced Studies Strasbourg University Founder & former Director of Institute for Genetics, Cellular and Molecular Biology, France.
Pierre Chambon, who is Professor of Molecular Genetics at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Strasbourg University, is Honorary Professor at the Collège de France (Paris), and Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the Strasbourg University. He is the founder and former Director of the Institute for Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology (IGBMC), and the founder and former Director of the Institut Clinique de la Souris (ICS/MCI), in Strasbourg, France.
Over the last 50 years, his scientific achievements are logically inscribed in an uninterrupted series of discoveries in the field of transcriptional control of gene expression in higher eukaryotes: discovery of PolyADPRibose (1963), discovery of multiple RNA polymerases (1969), major contribution to the elucidation of chromatin structure, the Nucleosome (1974), discovery of animal split genes (1977), discovery of multiple promoter elements and their cognate factors (1980-1993) and of transcriptional enhancers (1981).
During the last 30 years his studies on the structure and function of nuclear receptors have changed our concept of signal transduction and endocrinology.
Clinical Advisory Board
Prof. Jean Bennett
USA
Professor of Cell & Developmental Biology – Co-Director of Center for Advanced Retinal & Ocular Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A
Jean Bennett, MD, Ph.D., is the F.M. Kirby Professor of Ophthalmology, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, and Co-Director of the Center for Advanced Retinal and Ocular Therapeutics (CAROT) at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She has developed gene transfer approaches to test treatment strategies for retinal degenerative and ocular neovascular diseases, to elucidate retinal differentiation pathways and to identify pathogenetic mechanisms that lead to blindness. Her research with Dr. Albert Maguire, conducted at UPenn over the past 25 years, has established the scientific underpinnings which made it possible to test the first potential definitive retinal gene therapy treatment for patients with blinding retinal degenerations. Dr. Bennett is the Scientific Director of gene therapy clinical trials for a congenital blindness. These studies, carried out at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and sponsored by Spark Therapeutics, led to the approval of the first gene therapy drug (Luxturna) for a genetic disease in the USA. This is also the first gene therapy drug to be approved worldwide. Dr. Bennett’s Center continues to strive to develop treatments that could be applied to other genetic and acquired blinding conditions.
Prof. Eric Pierce
USA
Professor of Ophthalmology Massachusetts Eye and Ear Harvard Medical School, US
Dr. Eric Pierce received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He did his residency in Ophthalmology at Harvard and fellowship in Pediatric Ophthalmology at Children’s Hospital, Boston where he also took his first faculty position. He was then recruited to the department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He returned to Harvard in 2011 to establish the Ocular Genomics Institute.
Dr. Pierce is an ophthalmologist and molecular geneticist whose research program is dedicated to understanding the molecular mechanisms of inherited retinal degenerations (IRDs), and improving therapeutic interventions for these conditions. IRDs are a leading cause of blindness worldwide, and are characterized by progressive dysfunction and death of retinal photoreceptor cells.
Dr. Pierce’s research program is focused on identifying new IRD disease genes, investigating the mechanism by which mutations in the identified genes lead to blindness, and using this information about disease pathogenesis to develop rational therapies to prevent vision loss.
Prof. Dominik Fischer
UK
Professor Fischer is a Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford and Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at the Oxford Eye Hospital, in Oxford, UK. He specializes in retinal diseases and their treatment.
He became member of the medical faculty at the Eberhard Karl University Tübingen in 2012 and was appointed Professor of Ophthalmology at the Centre for Ophthalmology Tübingen in 2015.
He did is undergraduate training in Munich, Melbourne and Zurich and received his clinical and research training at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Tübingen and University of Oxford. He is registered specialist and Fellow of the European Board of Ophthalmology since 2012.
Professor Fischer has received more than 25 awards, among them the Leonhard Klein award for the advancement of vitreoretinal surgery and the Senator-Hermann-Wacker award for scientific contributions to the field of retinal and choroidal disease. He has given more than 100 invited lectures and is author of more than 70 peer reviewed articles.
Prof. Paul Sieving
USA
Professor of Ophthalmology at University of California Davis School of Medicine and the former Director of the US National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health
Dr. Paul A. Sieving is an ophthalmologist with extensive expertise in inherited retinal diseases (IRD). He served as Director of the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health for nearly 20 years where he led the research programs to advance national vision health. Dr. Sieving previously was the Paul R. Lichter Professor of Ophthalmic Genetics at the University of Michigan Medical School for 17 years and founded the Centre for Retinal and Macular Degeneration. Dr. Sieving received his M.D. from the University of Illinois where he trained in ophthalmology and obtained a Ph.D. in bioengineering.
He has developed and led translational therapy programs for IRD conditions using human ocular gene therapy and neurotrophic factor implants.Dr. Sieving has received prestigious awards including the Società Oftalmologica Italiana Honorary Award in Ophthalmology in 2016.
He holds elected membership in the National Academy of Medicine USA and the German National Academy of Science. Since leaving the NIH in 2019, he founded the new Centre for Ocular Regenerative Therapy “CORT” at the University of California Davis.
Prof. Eyal Banin
Israel
Professor of Ophthalmology ; Director, Center for Retinal and Macular Degenerations (CRMD), Department of Ophthalmology, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel
Prof. Eyal Banin, MD, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Retinal and Macular Degenerations (CRMD) at the Department of Ophthalmology at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Medicine, holds a Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the Hebrew University, and completed his ophthalmology residency at Hadassah Medical Center. Following a post-doctoral and medical retina fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Scheie Eye Institute in Philadelphia, he was appointed head of the Medical Retina Service and the CRMD at Hadassah.
His main clinical and research focus is in the field of retinal and macular degenerations, including the development and application of novel cell- and gene-based therapies for these diseases. The recipient of many research grants from Israeli and foreign institutions, Dr. Banin has authored and published over 140 articles in leading medical journals.
Prof. Bart Leroy
Belgium
Head of Department of Ophthalmology, Ghent University Hospital, Professor of Ophthalmology, Ghent, Belgium; Director of the Ophthalmic Genetics and Retinal Degenerations clinics in the Division of Ophthalmology and Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)
Dr. Leroy, MD, Ph.D., is an expert in ophthalmic medicine and retinal degeneration, and is Professor of Ophthalmology at Ghent University, having been the Head of Department at Ghent University Hospital’s Department of Ophthalmology since 2016. Ghent was also where he completed his Ph.D. on inherited retinal dystrophies in 2006 after training as a clinical geneticist and ophthalmologist at Ghent University Hospital, and his fellowship at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, UK.
His clinical focus at both Ghent University Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with inherited retinal and eye diseases including Leber congenital amaurosis, Stargardt disease, retinitis pigmentosa, and other genetic syndromes and diseases. He took part in the development of Luxturna and is currently involved in several clinical trials of ocular gene therapy. Dr. Leroy has authored over 150 papers, and received numerous prizes and grants for his work into ophthalmic medicine and retinal diseases.
Dan Chung
USA
Dr. Chung was appointed Chief Medical Officer of SparingVision in February 2021.
He leads the clinical development and research of our lead programs SPVN06 and SPVN20, and oversees medical strategy for our earlier stage pipeline products while engaging in medical education and patient advocacy.
Previously, Dan led the global medical strategy for ophthalmology at Spark Therapeutics,playing a pivotal role in the clinical development and approval of Luxturna™, the first gene therapy to be approved in the US for a genetic disease. During his time at Spark, Dan served as the inherited retinal disease and ophthalmology expert across various company divisions and worked in medical affairs, clinical development and patient advocacy. Prior to Spark, Dr. Chung spent 11 years at the Scheie Eye Institute, University of Pennsylvania, specializing in gene-based therapies for inherited retinal diseases and cilia mediated disease.
Dr. Chung received his medical degree from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1994 and undertook postgraduate training at the National Eye Institute, Summa Health Systems and Cole Eye Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He is based in Philadelphia, USA.
“We are a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of genomic medicines for the treatment of blinding inherited retinal diseases.”
Investors
