Matthew Wood's Short Bio
Matthew Wood is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and Deputy Head of the University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division. He is currently director of the MDUK Oxford Neuromuscular Centre and director of the Oxford Harrington Rare Disease Centre. The laboratory has many collaborations with industry including with two recent spin-out companies from the Wood Lab – Evox Therapeutics and PepGen
This Laboratory comprises a 37 strong, world-leading team working at the interface of biotechnology and biomedicine, primarily investigating RNA biology and the development of RNA-based medicines for neuromuscular disease in the Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford. In 2019 the MDUK Oxford Neuromuscular Centre was established, core-funded by Muscular Dystrophy UK, and Directed by Wood. Wood is a leading pioneer in the field of oligonucleotide therapies and co-leads the International MDEX Consortium with Muntoni of UCL – a major international translational medicine collaboration to develop oligonucleotide treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and related neuromuscular conditions. The first oligonucleotide developed by this Consortium (Eteplirsen) recently received accelerated approval by the FDA as the first ever treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. To advance the field of oligonucleotide therapeutics a new spin-out company PepGen was founded by Matthew and colleagues in 2018, to develop and commercialise peptide delivery technology developed in the lab in collaboration with Mike Gait at MRC LMB in Cambridge UK. Wood has global influence in this field through his work and is an executive member of the global alliance TREAT-NMD. Wood is also a pioneering international leader in the field of exosome / extracellular vesicle biology. In 2011 he and colleagues made the landmark discovery that exosomes could be developed into a therapeutic technology for the delivery of macromolecular biological drugs to target tissues including the brain. This has led to fundamental advances in exosome biology and in 2016 resulted in creation of a new spin-out biotechnology company Evox Therapeutics of which Wood is a founder and Director. Amongst many responsibilities in the Oxford Medical Sciences Division Wood plays a leading role in innovation related activities, including as a Director of the University of Oxford’s technology transfer organisation, Oxford University Innovation (http://innovation.ox.ac.uk).
