Do Young Lee is Co-Founder at AviadoBio. Do Young has over 15 years’ experience in the clinical translation of gene therapies. Her initial research interest at University College London was in the discovery and translation of gene therapy for the treatment of Haemophilia and lysosomal storage disorders. Earlier in her career, she specialised in vector design and AAV capsid development – two key components of potent and safe gene therapy vectors. In 2015, Do Young joined Freeline therapeutics where she successfully led the research vector core as well as early preclinical programme designs.

In 2018, Do Young moved to the Department of Basic and Clinical neuroscience (Wohl Institute – King’s College London), where she led the UK-DRI vector core facility. Together with Professor Chris Shaw and Dr Youn Bok Lee, she co-founded AviadoBio. At AviadoBio Do Young is responsible for vector manufacture, discovery and pre-clinical activities.

Do Young holds a dual degree, a BSc in Biological engineering and Clinical pathology, MSc in Epidemiology from the Korea University and a PhD in Haematology from the Cancer institute in University College London.

Youn Bok Lee is Co-Founder at AviadoBio. Youn Bok has a career spanning over 25 years of research in molecular biology of neurodegenerative disease. In 2001, he Joined the molecular neuroscience research group at the University of Bristol, where he investigated the neuro specific regulatable system using virus technology. His study focused on the protective role of RNA binding proteins and microRNAs on neuronal cell death. In 2010, Youn Bok moved to King’s College London, where he continued pre-clinical research on the role of RNA binding protein TDP-43 and FUS in ALS and FTD. He discovered toxic gain of G4C2 RNA repeat expansion function and demonstrated the pathogenic mechanism of di-peptides in C9orf72 ALS/FTD. During this research career, he has conducted Lenti and AAV projects for pre-clinical research and translational science. In 2018, Youn Bok established his gene therapy group in King’s College London and conducted pre-clinical research for ALS/FTD. At AviadoBio Youn Bok is responsible for leading the innovative pre-clinical research and developing the gene therapy programmes.

Youn Bok holds a BSc in Biology and MSc in Animal Physiology and Biochemistry from Dongguk University, South Korea and a MSc and PhD in Molecule Neuroscience from University of Bristol, UK.

Professor Shaw had trained as a Neurologist in New Zealand before coming to Cambridge, UK on a Wellcome Trust Fellowship and moving to King’s College London in 1995. He is Director of the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute, and Centre Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute at King’s. His research team have discovered more amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) genes than any other laboratory, enabling gene testing for patients and at-risk family members. They have generated a large number of stem cell and transgenic mouse models that recapitulate key features of the human disease and have revealed important mechanistic insights. Their focus for the future is to develop gene therapies for a wide range of neurodegenerative disorders using adeno-associated viral gene vectors. Award highlights include the “Forbes Norris Award” for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Care and Research (2009), “Sheila Essey Prize” for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research (2012) and “Kea World Class New Zealander Award” (2019). He remains clinically active, running an ALS clinic at King’s College Hospital and leading clinical trials of antisense oligonucleotide therapies.