Mark is a clinician-scientist interested in the genetic basis of eye diseases, clinical genomics and the translation of gene therapy treatments. He completed Medical School at the University of Adelaide and attained first class honours in Medical Science for his research on Parkinson’s disease. He was awarded a competitive Rhodes scholarship to complete a Doctorate of Philosophy at Oxford University. In his thesis he developed and tested viral vector gene therapies for retinitis pigmentosa and achromatopsia eye diseases in mice, as well having regular exposure to the successful Phase I/II clinical gene therapy trials for choroideraemia and X-linked retinitis pigmentosa.

Following his doctorate, Mark returned to South Australia as a postdoctoral research fellow at Flinders University, where he was the chief investigator on a new investigator grant from the Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia. Coordinating teams from three Australian universities to successfully develop a gene therapy for neuroprotection in experimental glaucoma. As well as contributing to the development and clinical validation of a polygenic risk score for predicting onset and severity of glaucoma in patients.

In 2019, Mark commenced eye surgery training with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists in South Australia. During his Ophthalmology training, he continues his clinical and translational research projects, remains an associate supervisor of two PhD students, and remains an active peer-reviewer for international journals, national grants, and higher degree university students.