Summary
Uta Griesenbach is a Professor of Molecular Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. She joined the Gene Therapy Group Two at Imperial College in 1997 having earlier graduated from the University of Bonn (Germany) and completed a PhD at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto Canada and the University of Bonn under the supervision of Lap-Chee Tsui.
Uta is President of the British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy from 2017 to 2021 and a Non-Executive Board Member of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. She is currently a panel member of the MRC-Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS), the Biomedical Catalyst Major Awards Committee and was the Gene Therapy advisor on a National Research Ethics Committee (2013-2018) and a member of the Innovate/Industrial Strategy ATIMP Manufacturing Task Force (2016/17) commissioned to define conditions necessary to “anchor” commercial scale manufacturing of ATMP’s in the UK.
Teaching
Uta Griesenbach has also a keen interest in teaching. She is the Programme Director of the MSc in Genes, Drugs and Stem Cells and Lead of the Genome-based therapeutics module of the MSc in Human Genomics at Imperial College. Uta Griesenbach is also Deputy Director for post-graduate studies at the National Heart and Lung Institute and a post- and undergraduate tutor. She regularly supervises BSc, MSc, MDres and PhD projects related to translational research programmes (see below). In addition, she leads the Workforce Development Strategy within the HEI-Connecting Capability Fund bid and works across the UK, in close collaboration with the advanced therapeutic treatment centres (ATTCs) and the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGTC).
Research
Uta Griesenbach’s research interests are related to the development of novel gene and cell therapy-based treatments for cystic fibrosis and other inflammatory lung diseases as well as haemophilia and include:
- Gene therapy clinical trials
- Toxicology and GMP-vector production
- Development of novel lentiviral vectors
- Biomarker development
Uta Griesenbach is a Strategy Group Member of the UK Cystic Fibrosis Gene Therapy Consortium who has recently partnered with Boehringer-Ingelheim and Oxford BioMedica to further advance Cystic Fibrosis (CF) gene therapy to a licensed treatment. She is a Co-investigator on several clinical trials, including a recently completed phase 2b gene therapy trial in CF patients.
Uta Griesenbach currently holds grants from Wellcome-Health Innovation Challenge Fund, Wellcome Portfolio and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (Connecting Capability Funding), partnered with UCL and King's College London, to increase collaboration across London in the field of Advanced Therapeutic Medicinal Products (ATIMPs).
The successful bids listed above led to expansion of her research group, which she is co-leading with Professor Eric Alton and the team currently consists of 1 lecturer, 4 post-docs, 1 teaching fellow, 2 knowledge exchange practitioners, 5 PhD students, 2 technicians, 1 laboratory manager, 1 PA and 2 MSc project students.
Professor Griesenbach has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers and reviews and co-edited 2 books. She holds various patents related to viral gene transfer.
Publications
Journals
Allaire NE, Griesenbach U, Kerem B, et al., 2023, Gene, RNA, and ASO-based therapeutic approaches in Cystic Fibrosis, Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, Vol:22, ISSN:1569-1993, Pages:S39-S44
Conference
Bell RV, Clarke NK, Alton EWFW, et al., 2022, Regulated expression of secreted transgenes by pulmonary transplanted macrophages in mice, 29th Annual Congress of the European-Society-of-Gene-and-Cell-Therapy (ESCGT), MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC, Pages:A55-A55, ISSN:1043-0342
Sinadinos A, Bell R, Meng C, et al., 2022, A lentiviral vector intranasal dosing strategy to control local and systemic expression of intracellular and secreted transgenic proteins in vivo, 29th Annual Congress of the European-Society-of-Gene-and-Cell-Therapy (ESCGT), MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC, Pages:A195-A195, ISSN:1043-0342
Richardson VR, Clarke NK, Griesenbach U, et al., 2022, Optimising the genetic modification of macrophages using a lentiviral vector for application in cellular therapies, 29th Annual Congress of the European-Society-of-Gene-and-Cell-Therapy (ESCGT), MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC, Pages:A43-A43, ISSN:1043-0342
Juarez-Molina C, Meng C, Morgan C, et al., 2022, Non-viral Gene Therapy for Autoimmune Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis, 29th Annual Congress of the European-Society-of-Gene-and-Cell-Therapy (ESCGT), MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC, Pages:A189-A189, ISSN:1043-0342