Tim Cherry, PhD, has joined the Department of Ophthalmology faculty as a joint Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Ophthalmology.
Dr. Cherry has been a principal investigator at Seattle Children’s Research Institute in the Center for Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine for several years, working on research with Ophthalmology faculty Jennifer Chao on age-related macular degeneration, Debarshi Mustafi on inherited retinal disease, and Yue Wu on computational ophthalmology.
“I’m excited to be joining the department and a research center with such diverse research topics,” he said. “You go where the science is leading you, and science is pushing us into the therapeutics of retinal disease, and to synergize what’s going on in the lab with what’s going on in the clinic.”
Originally from Nebraska, Dr. Cherry studied genetics and linguistics as an undergraduate College Scholar at Cornell University. Tim then trained in the genetics of human brain malformations in the lab of Christopher A. Walsh at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA.
He later earned his doctorate from Harvard University, where he conducted research on retinal development under the mentorship of Constance Cepko, PhD, in the Dept. of Genetics. Tim then trained as a postdoctoral fellow, studying mechanisms of gene regulation in neural development and disease with Michael E. Greenberg in the Dept. of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School,
Dr. Cherry’s wife, Rachel Yung, is a breast oncologist at UW Medicine and Fred Hutch, and they have two sons.