Michael Scandura

Mike is a PhD Student in the Department of Genetics. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Tufts University in 2018, after which he joined the Ocular Genomics Institute at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Under the supervision of Dr. Eric Pierce, he helped identify the importance of DNA damage in the pathogenesis of NMNAT1-associated retinal degeneration and contributed to the development of a successful AAV-mediated gene therapy to treat the disease in a mouse model. Since 2022, he has been working under the supervision of Dr. Jeff Gruen and is currently investigating the mechanism of neurodevelopmental conditions using gene edited organoid models.