Haijiang Lin, MD, PhD

Haijiang Lin MD., Ph.D., serves as Director of the Translational Research Center within the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School as well as an investigator at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lin earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry at McGill University and received research postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School and Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. He completed his ophthalmology training at the University of Texas Residency Program followed by the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Medical Retina Fellowship Program.  Dr. Lin’s clinical expertise lies in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and other retinal vascular diseases. As a clinician-scientist, Dr. Lin’s lab primarily focuses on epigenetic mechanisms of disease, gene-editing, and stem cell tissue regeneration, as well as gene therapy approaches for AMD and diabetic retinopathy. To date, Dr. Lin has identified several genes involving ubiquitin conjugation and de-ubiquitination, created a de novo DNA methyl-transferase gene knockout and induction mice, and studied the function of DNA methylation in tumor formation. He demonstrated the function of microRNA in the development of AMD before people cast eyes over this non-coding RNA in this field, and was one of the pioneers who found that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) damage is associated with AMD. and is currently exploring gene therapy using adenoviruses and non-vial vectors for the treatment of inherited retinal diseases like AMD.