Her laboratory developed the first FDA approved gene therapy for use in humans, which treats a rare form of blindness.
[1] Bennett attended Hopkins School in New Haven,[2] and graduated with honors from Yale University in 1976, with a bachelor of science in biology.
As a postdoctoral student, she collaborated with Dr. William French Anderson developing molecular techniques for gene editing.
[8] However, Bennett pushed forward and demonstrated that AAV-mediated delivery of a functional RPE65 gene significantly improved sight in near-blind dogs.
[9] Based on their pre-clinical data, Bennett's team pursued clinical trials in children with a defective form of the RPE65 gene.