Christina Zeitz, PhD

Department of Genetics, Institut de la Vision, Paris, France

Christina Zeitz is a research director at INSERM and was elected as the correspondent of the Department of Genetics at the Institut de la Vision, directed by José-Alain Sahel in Paris, France. Together with Isabelle Audo, they are leading a group on gene identification, functional characterization and development of therapies for stationary and progressive inherited retinal disorders.

Christina Zeitz studied chemistry in Freiburg, Germany, Seattle, USA and Berlin, Germany and obtained her PhD in Chemistry at the Free University of Berlin in 2004. She performed her postdoctoral fellow as a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich, Switzerland in Wolfgang Berger’s group. In 2007 she was recruited as an emerging group leader at the Institut de la Vision after an international competitive call. In 2010, she integrated at INSERM as a researcher and in 2015 she became a research director. Using targeted next generation sequencing approaches her group identifies the genetic cause in 40-70% of cases. Using linkage, candidate gene, whole exome and whole genome sequencing approaches she delivered 13 novel gene defects and showed the importance of intronic and synonymous variants. This work provided prevalence studies of different genetic defects, showed clear genotype-phenotype correlations and helped to dissect postsynaptic retinal signaling. She leads the international consortium on congenital stationary night blindness. Christina Zeitz has authored over 80 peer reviewed articles and regularly serves as a reviewer or as an editorial board member for international journals. She has been on the organizing and program committee of international scientific meetings as a symposia chair, keynote and invited lecturer. She was awarded with the Retinitis-Pigmentosa-Award donated by Pro Retina Deutschland e.V. and RP-Vereinigung Switzerland and received the Dalloz Award 2011 from the Institut de France for her research on ophthalmology.

Terms of Appointment: Aug 2019 – Jul 2021; Dec 2021 – Nov 2023