Jennifer Hollywood

Dr. Hollywood's expertise lies in molecular medicine, gene editing technologies, and the development of disease models for therapeutic research. She works on genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and cystinosis, particularly in the context of developing gene therapy strategies and stem cell-based models. She completed her PhD in molecular medicine (2014) at University College Cork (Ireland) from which she developed expertise in gene editing to model and correct genetic diseases. In 2014, she emigrated to New Zealand to continue her research at the University of Auckland. Here, Dr Hollywood developed the human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell and kidney organoid model of cystinosis. This work has shown that the iPS cell/organoid platform can be used to model aspects of cystinosis and has identified a new combination treatment. To further explore this therapeutic approach, Dr Hollywood developed a rat model of cystinosis which faithfully recapitulates the human disease. Her team is currently conducting several pre-clinical drug trials using these animal models to discover and develop improved treatments for cystinosis patients. In 2024, Dr Hollywood returned to Ireland to establish her own laboratory focussed on cystinosis and kidney disease research within the Department of Physiology at UCC. She is currently testing a pro-drug version of cysteamine called CF10, which offers the benefits of cysteamine without the unwanted side-effects.

• Cystinosis • Kidney disease • CRISPR/Cas9 editing • Stem cell biology • Organoid development and culture • Acute kidney injury • Drug development

My research area of interest is using gene editing tools to model and study genetic diseases and to find potential new treatments. My PhD and first post-doc focussed on how to correct cystic fibrosis (CF)-causing mutations using gene editing tools such as zinc finger nucleases, TALENS and the CRISPR/Cas9 system. I was part of the team that developed the world’s first successful gene editing experiment to correct the most common CF-causing mutation, deltaF508 (Lee et al., 2012). Cystinosis - bench to bedside I emigrated to New Zealand in 2014 and joined Prof Alan Davidson’s lab, to use my skills in gene editing to model cystinosis in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Cystinosis is a lysosomal storage disease that is caused by defective cystinosin transporter activity leading to an accumulation of cystine in every cell of the body. The kidney is particularly affected with kidney proximal tubule dysfunction followed by end stage renal disease. My driving goal was to find alternative treatments for this incurable disease. In the first three years working as a postdoc, I developed these techniques and was part of the team that developed a simple, affordable method to differentiate these stem cells into kidney tissue or organoids (Przepiorski et al., 2018). Using fluorescent cell-based assays, I discovered that a basic biochemical pathway, autophagy, is dysfunctional in these cells and organoids and went on to specifically target this pathway with FDA approved drugs and found that a combination treatment of mTOR inhibition and cysteamine could successfully rescue the disease phenotype in these cell models (Hollywood et al., 2020). I focussed on developing a longer-term strategy to get this treatment to patients and realised that there was pressing need for a good in vivo model of cystinosis to test new therapies. In 2018 I  generated the world's first CRISPR/Cas9 genetically modified cystinotic rat. I performed a yearlong characterisation of this rat and I found that its disease progression and biochemical dysfunction very closely resembles the human disease making it the best animal model currently available, and an excellent tool to be used in preclinical drug studies. 

My focus now is performing pre-clinical drug studies in this rodent model with 2 potential new therapies progressing to clinical trials in 2026.

Undergraduate courses:

PL1001 Introduction to Physiology for Dentistry I

PL1400 Introduction to Physiology for Pharmacy I

PL2021 Introductory Physiology I

PL3001 Pathophysiology

PL3025 Literature Review, Experimental Design and Data Analysis

PL4020 Research Project (final year BSc Physiology)

PL3005 Cell and Epithelial Physiology