Dr. Byrne earned a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Hamilton College and then studied as a Fulbright Fellow at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. She earned a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California Berkeley in 2007. Dr. Byrne then worked as a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow and a Ford Foundation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkeley. Dr. Byrne started her research program at the University of Pittsburgh in 2017. She has been awarded a RPB Career Development Award, a Foundation Fighting Blindness Individual Investigator Award, and in 2023 she received the University of Pittsburgh Office of Innovation Emerging Innovator Award. Recently, Dr. Byrne was named a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors. Dr. Byrne is also the co-founder and CSO of Avista Therapeutics, a gene therapy biotechnology company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
- Ford Foundation Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
- Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California Berkeley
- University of California Berkeley, PhD in Neuroscience
- J. William Fulbright Fellow at Karolinksa Institutet
- Hamilton College, BA in Neuroscience
Education & Training
Chromatographic Purification and Polishing of AAV Particles. Sedorovitz M, Byrne LC, Betegon M. Methods Mol Biol. 2025;2848:249-257. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-4087-6_15.
Retinal Explant Culture from Mouse, Human, and Nonhuman Primates and Its Applications in Vision Research. Vats A, Xi Z, Byrne LC, Chen Y. Methods Mol Biol. 2025;2848:169-186. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-4087-6_11.
In Vivo Imaging of Rodent Retina in Retinal Disease. Beryozkin A, Byrne LC. Methods Mol Biol. 2025;2848:151-167. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-4087-6_10.
PRPF31-retinitis pigmentosa: Challenges and opportunities for clinical translation. Aweidah H, Xi Z, Sahel JA, Byrne LC. Vision Res. 2023 Dec;213:108315. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2023.108315. Epub 2023 Sep 14.
Adaptable three-pin skull clamp for large animal research. Lohss M, Ho J, Naylor N, Cashman S, Fu R, Tonya Stefko S, Byrne LC. HardwareX. 2023 Aug 29;15:e00472. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2023.e00472. eCollection 2023 Sep.
The primary research focus of the Byrne lab is to create new approaches that directly address the most important unmet needs in the field of gene therapy. The Byrne Lab develops gene therapies for retinal disease, including a diverse group of blinding disorders that have a profound impact on the quality of life of patients. The Byrne lab is exploring gene augmentation, optogenetics, and genome editing approaches to treat inherited and age-related forms of blindness.