partnership with the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program.
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"Title TBA"Presented by: Date: October 22, 2026, 4:00-5:00 p.m. Location: Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health Building To be added to the monthly calendar event, email Zezong Gu. |
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Speaker
Areas of Expertise
- Gene Expression
- Molecular Medicine
- Molecular Neurobiology
Afrooz Rashnonejad, MSc, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and principal investigator in the Jerry R. Mendell Center for Gene Therapy at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Rashnonejad is the chair of the American Society of Gene and Cell therapy (ASGCT)’s New Investigator Committee and she was twice awarded the “Excellence in Research Award” at the ASGCT annual meetings.
Dr. Rashnonejad earned her doctorate in biotechnology from Ege University, Turkey, in 2017, after completing two master’s of science degrees in microbiology, and stem cell. During her PhD, she developed an in-utero (AKA prenatal or fetal) gene therapy for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). During this period, she also worked in Dr. Guangping Gao (her PhD co-advisor)’s lab in the Center for Gene Therapy at the University of Massachusetts Medical School as a visiting scientist to master large-scale recombinant AAV production. She then completed postdoctoral training in the lab of Scott Harper, PhD, at the Mendell Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. During her postdoc, Dr. Rashnonejad developed RNA targeting AAV.CRISPR-Cas13 and U7-snRNA mediated exon skipping to treat autosomal dominant inherited Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD).
The Rashnonejad Lab’s research focuses on the development of Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV)-based gene therapies for neurodegenerative and neuromuscular disorders using cutting-edge technologies such as RNAi and CRISPR. Rashnonejad Lab is improving PNS targeting by engineering AAV vectors toward developing gene therapies for peripheral neuropathies including Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT1B and Dejerine–Sottas syndrome (DSS)). Rashnonejad Lab is also interested to develop in-utero gene therapies for severe neuromuscular disorders.
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