Associate Professor
Current Position
Scientist, Molecular Genetics Thalassaemia Department
Associate Professor
The Cyprus Institute of Neurology & Genetics
Course Coordinator Preparatory Course: Introduction to Molecular Biomedical Sciences
Faculty: MM101: Molecular Basis of Monogenic Diseases
Coordinator Transferrable Skills lectures and CING Lectures site seminar series
Research Interests
In addition to model development for haematopoietic disorders and investigating the role of miRNAs in erythropoiesis (see e.g. Papasavva et al. 2021), main interest is the gene therapy of rare anaemias and in particular β-thalassaemia (see e.g. Koniali et al. 2021, Lederer et al. 2022), with research focus on three different approaches:
- Mutation-specific RNAi-supplementation of gene addition. Based on lentiviral expression vectors for permanent gene addition in cell lines and in primary haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. See e.g. Patsali et al. 2018
- Genome editing of disease modifiers. Based on designer nucleases and double-strand-break-independent editors for the removal or modification of γ-globin repressors and associated recognition elements, to activate the β-globin-like γ-globin gene. See e.g. Loucari et al. 2018, Patsali et al. 2019a, Papasavva et al. 2019, Papasavva et al. 2022
- Homology-independent gene repair. Based on designer nucleases (CRISPR/Cas, TALEN) and base editors for the removal of aberrant regulatory elements and restoration of normal gene expression. See e.g. Patsali et al. 2019b, Patsali et al. 2019c
Biography
Dr Lederer received his PhD from the University of East Anglia for work in plant virology at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK. He now holds the position of Scientist at the Molecular Genetics Thalassaemia Department (MGTD; head: Marina Kleanthous) of the Cyprus Institute of Neurology & Genetics (CING), where he is PI of the MGTD Gene Editing and Therapy unit. Dr Lederer is Associate Professor and course coordinator at the CING Postgraduate Education, associate editor of Frontiers in Genome Editing and MDPI Genes, executive board member of the Global Globin Network, member of the core-development team of the ITHANET Portal, member of the ClinGen-recognised Haemoglobinopathies Variant Curation Expert Panel, president of the Cyprus Society of Human Genetics and board member of the Hellenic Society of Gene Therapy and Regenerative Medicine.
Publications
Dr Lederer is author of 51 peer-reviewed articles with over 2500 literature citations and an h index of 21 (i10 index 30). For an updated list of publications, see here.
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