Sarah Atkinson

Dr. Sarah Atkinson is a Senior Lecturer at Ulster University's School of Biomedical Sciences, where she leads initiatives in stratified medicine and ophthalmology research. She holds a BSc from Queen’s University Belfast and MRes/PhD from Ulster University, with postdoctoral work including a sabbatical at the University of Dundee focusing on siRNA therapies.

Her research applies molecular diagnostics and personalized treatments to eye diseases, with emphases on:

• siRNA-based therapies for corneal dystrophies
• NLRP3 inflammasome targeting in glaucoma
• CRISPR/Cas9 applications for mutation-specific disorders
• Angiogenesis mechanisms in ocular diseases

She directs Ulster's Stratified Medicine postgraduate programs and received the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (2024) and Distinguished Fellowship (2023) for educational leadership. Current projects include Alzheimer's-eye biomarker studies and NLRP3 inhibitor development.

She leads a research team within the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine and supervises PhD candidates in glaucoma therapeutics and molecular ophthalmology.