Professor Jane Sowden
Chair, Medical Advisory Board
Biography
Jane Sowden, PhD, is the GOSHCC Professor in Developmental Biology and Genetics at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.
Jane qualified in Biochemistry at Oxford University and was awarded a PhD in Molecular Genetics at UCL in 1991, followed by postdoctoral training at the MRC Human Biochemical Genetics Unit.
In 1996 she was awarded a 4 year MRC Career Development Award to work on retinal development at the Institute of Ophthalmology, UCL and subsequently moved to the Institute of Child Health as a Lecturer to establish the Eye Development and Repair Research Group focusing on congenital and inherited eye conditions causing childhood blindness.
From 2007-2013 she was Lead Scientist for ocular molecular genetics research in the Ulverscroft Vision Research Group.
She was promoted to Professor in 2011, holds a GOSHCC Research Leader Award since 2012 and was made NIHR Senior Investigator in 2016.
She leads the Advanced Treatments for Malformation and Tissue Damage Theme in the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital UCL Biomedical Research Centre.
Jane has published widely on retinal development, genetic causes of congenital eye defects and childhood blindness, and developing stem cell therapies for retinal disease including landmark studies demonstrating the feasibility of retinal repair by cell transplantation. Her current research aims to improve genetic diagnosis of childhood eye conditions and to develop novel stem cell and gene based therapies.