Forbes Manson

Overview

Senior Lecturer in Ophthalmology with research interests in inherited eye disease and therapies

Programme Director MSc Genomic Medicine 

Senior Tutor for Post-graduate Research (Division of Evolution and Genomic Sciences)

Portfolio Tutor and PBL Tutor for MBChB Medicine course

Biography

I gained my PhD at the University of Aberdeen (1990) before completing post-doctoral positions at the University of Edinburgh (1989-1995). I then moved into the field of human genetics when I joined the laboratory of Professor Alan Wright (MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh) in 1995. There I was part of the team that first published RPGR as the gene mutated in X-linked retinitis pigmentosa RP3 and I went on to make a conditional knockout mouse model for Rpgr and was the first to discover the protein’s centriolar localisation. In 2002 I moved to The University of Manchester where I am now a senior lecturer in ophthalmology. I am the Director of the MSc Genomic Medicine programmes that supports the 100,000 Genome Project. My current research interests include correcting the function of mutant proteins associated with retinopathies using small molecules, using induced pleuripotent stem cells to model RPE disease, and the genetics of open angle glaucoma.