Khine Zaw is a PhD student in a joint programme between Murdoch University, Australia and Mahidol University, Thailand. Her PhD project focuses on finding molecular therapy for a genetic deaf-blindness disease called Usher Syndrome type 2A. She uses antisense oligonucleotides (short synthetic nucleic acids) as a tool to manipulate mRNA splicing of the gene of interest. Therapeutic alternative splicing intends either to correct the splicing defect caused by a mutation or to induce the skipping of an exon harbouring the mutation. In the latter case, the purpose is to produce a shorter protein that works more functionally than the mutated one.

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