Dr. Gao is an internationally recognized gene therapy researcher who has played a key role in the discovery and characterization of new family of adeno-associated virus (AAV) serotypes, which was instrumental in reviving the gene therapy field, hugely impacting many currently
untreatable human diseases

For nearly 30 years of his scientific research career, Dr. Gao has primarily focused on molecular genetics and viral vector gene therapy of rare genetic diseases, encompassing disease gene cloning, causative mutation identification, pathomechanism investigation, animal modeling, novel viral vector discovery and engineering for in vivo gene delivery, vector biology, preclinical and clinical gene therapy product development, viral vector manufacturing for preclinical and clinical gene therapy applications as well as technology platforms development as novel approaches for human gene therapy.

Dr. Gao has published 250+ research papers, 6 book chapters, and 4 edited books and serves as Editor of Human Gene Therapy, Senior Editor of the Gene and Cell Therapy book series, Associate Editor of Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, and on Editorial Boards of several other gene therapy and virology journals. Dr. Gao was recently elected for a three-year term as the Vice President (2017-2018), President elect (2018-2019) and President (2019-2020) for the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.

Dr. Gao is an elected fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI), holding 131 patents with 221 more patent applications pending; some have been licensed to 10+ pharmaceutical companies. Recently, Dr. Gao was ranked as #4 of Top 20 Translational Researchers from 2013- to 2017 by Nature Biotechnology, with his patents US852446 (filed by University of Pennsylvania) and US8734809 (filed by UMass) ranked as #2 and #4 of the Top 20 most cited patents, respectively. Dr. Gao co-founded Voyager Therapeutics and Aspa Therapeutics, focusing on developing rAAV gene therapeutics for treating a variety of devastating CNS disorders.