User:Drbjbyrne/sandbox

Dr. Barry J. Byrne is an American scientist, physician, inventor, and academic who specializes in cellular and genetic therapies in rare disease, especially Pompe disease and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Byrne is a professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, an associate research chair for Department of Pediatrics, and the director of the Powell Center for Rare Disease Research and Therapy at the University of Florida. He is most well-known for his work with AAV, being the first to show that AAV vectors effectively deliver and express proteins in muscle cells.

Education and Early Career:
Byrne attended Denison University, where he earned his B.S. in Chemistry. He then moved to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois, where Byrne would receive his MD and PhD in microbiology and immunology. Later that year, Byrne became a resident physician and later a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University. After completing his education in 1991, Byrne continued at Johns Hopkins, accepting a position as the Medical Director of the Pediatric Cardiac Transplant Program and an assistant professor of Pediatrics and Pathology. While at Johns Hopkins, Byrne’s research was primarily focused on microbiology and molecular genetics. In 1996, Byrne published a paper in which he concluded gene therapy using AAV could be a practical strategy for gene delivery.

It is while in this position that Byrne had an experience that altered his planned research path. While a resident physician at Johns Hopkins, Byrne was called to participate in a pediatric autopsy. He observed cardiomegaly and glycogen oozing from the deceased child's heart. This is something Byrne had never seen and he became determined to understand what had caused the child’s death. As it turns out, the deceased child had undiagnosed Pompe disease, which at the time had no available treatment. Dr. Byrne is now a world-renowned expert on Pompe Disease.

AAV Research:
In 1997, Byrne took a position as an assistant professor of pediatrics and molecular genetics & microbiology at the University of Florida. Here, Byrne continued to pursue his research in AAV-mediated gene transfer. His research led to a greater understanding the mechanisms of the viral vector and isolation of several AAV serotypes. Different serotypes target tissues differently and in 2006, Byrne published a paper showing that AAV serotype 9 effectively targets cardiac tissue.