Linda Popplewell

Linda is a Co-founder of Replay’s product company utilizing HSV’s ability to deliver big DNA in muscle. Linda is a Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research focuses on the pre-clinical development of gene therapies for neuromuscular diseases, in particular the muscular dystrophies based on gene addition, endonuclease-mediated gene editing, antisense oligonucleotide (AO)-induced exon skipping and gene silencing. This involves the engineering and testing of viral (HSV, AAV, lentivirus) and non-viral (plasmid, oligonucleotide) gene therapy vectors in pre-clinical models in the areas of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD) and oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD). Her research involves vector, AO and endonuclease design, their engineering and production, and evaluation of therapeutic efficacy in cell culture and transgenic disease models. Linda has published more than 40 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, contributed chapters to three different books, and has recently co-authored a textbook on Gene Therapy (publication in February 2020). Her research has resulted filing of six patents for intellectual protection, two of which have been licensed to US pharma companies.