Jean Bennett, MD, PhD, F.M. Kirby Professor of Ophthalmology at Penn Medicine, is listed as lead inventor on an issued patent that describes mRNA trans-splicing as a gene therapy for treatment of ocular diseases caused by defects in large genes. The technology offers the ability to use smaller constructs to replace only a portion of a target gene, overcoming prior challenges caused by the transgene packaging limits of standard AAV-based gene therapy vectors. This technology has been licensed to Ascidian Therapeutics (formerly Limelight Bio).
