Dr. Katherine High trained in internal medicine, hematology, and molecular genetics. Her pioneering bench-to-bedside studies of gene therapy for hemophilia led to a series of basic and clinical investigations that characterized the human immune response to AAV gene delivery vectors. Her work evolved to encompass the clinical translation of genetic therapies for multiple inherited disorders.

As the inaugural director of a Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she was also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Dr. High assembled a multidisciplinary team of scientists and physicians to discover and develop new gene therapies for genetic diseases. In 2013 she co-founded Spark Therapeutics, where she led the team that achieved the first FDA approval of a gene therapy for a genetic disease.

Following Spark’s acquisition by Roche, Dr. High left for a sabbatical at Rockefeller University. In 2021 she joined AskBio, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayer, as President of Therapeutics. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.