Jean Bennett, MD, PhD

F.M. Kirby Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine

2023 Co-Recipient, Harrington Prize for Innovation in Medicine

Dr. Jean Bennett received her BS in Biology from Yale University in 1976. She went on to earn a PhD in Zoology and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, where she began exploring how genes shape development and disease. She completed postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco, contributing to early gene‑transfer techniques, and later earned her MD from Harvard Medical School in 1986. This combination of scientific and medical training laid the foundation for her pioneering work in gene therapy.

Over three decades at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Bennett became a world leader in developing gene‑based treatments for inherited blindness. She directed the F. M. Kirby Center for Molecular Ophthalmology and built a true bench‑to‑bedside research program, training hundreds of young scientists along the way. Her team was the first to show that gene therapy could restore vision in animal models of retinal degeneration, and she then led the scientific effort to bring this approach to children and adults with a rare genetic form of blindness caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene. These clinical studies resulted in Luxturna™, the first FDA‑approved gene therapy for a genetic disease. Dr. Bennett also helped design the key outcome measure used to evaluate whether patients could navigate safely in low light—an essential step in proving the therapy worked. Her research continues to address major challenges in gene delivery and durability for a wide range of retinal diseases.

Dr. Bennett has co‑founded several biotechnology companies to help bring gene‑based treatments to patients and has received many honors for her groundbreaking work, including this year the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, one of the most prestigious awards in biomedical science.