Affiliation: University of Geneva

Dr. Martina Kropp is senior postdoctoral fellow in experimental ophthalmology focused on gene and cell therapy to treat neuroretinal degeneration at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Early in her career, Dr. Kropp was intrigued by neurophysiology and completed her Master in zoology (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) working with the barn owl, a model system for vision and hearing. This work in fundamental science consolidated knowledge in the physiology of senses, though her further career has been directed to applied biomedical research. An internship in 2007 aroused her interest in stem cells, which led to a PhD thesis at the Heinrich-Heine University, Germany, where she became involved in clinical research and progenitor cell therapy in cardiology. For her postdoctoral career, she returned to neurophysiology at the University Hospital Aachen, Germany, Dept. of Ophthalmology; she developed disease animal models for neuroretinal degeneration, performed clinical research, expanded her proficiency in neurophysiology of the visual system and became passionate about gene therapy and especially Sleeping Beauty transposon-based gene delivery systems with the aim of developing treatments for neuroretinal degeneration. Since 2012, she has continued this research at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She is working with human donor tissue to isolate, culture, and study different cell types as well as whole retinas, directing animal studies in several species, preparing documentation (to regulatory authorities and ethical commissions) for clinical trials, and validating the production of a GMP-grade Gene Therapy Medicinal Product for the treatment of AMD.