Katherine A. High

Katherine A. High is well known for her pioneering work in the development of gene therapy. With a degree in Chemistry from Harvard University, she went on to obtain an M.D. from the University of North Carolina School (UNC) of Medicine, after which she became a haematology fellow at Yale University. After working at UNC, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland, she left academia to found Spark Therapeutics, which obtained the first FDA approval of gene therapy for genetic disorders like haemophilia and Leber’s congenital amaurosis, a rare inherited eye disorder. She is currently President of Therapeutics at Asklepios BioPharmaceuticals (AskBio), Visiting Professor at Rockefeller University, Emeritus Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, a former president of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has received numerous awards for commitment to her field of research, among them the E. Donnall Thomas Prize of the American Society of Hematology, the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award of the American Association of Blood Banks, and the Outstanding Achievement Award of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.