Connie Cepko, Ph.D.

Dr. Cepko is the Bullard Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received her Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Phillip Sharp, and remained at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Richard Mulligan, where she helped develop the technology of retrovirus-mediated gene transduction. Her current research is focused on the development of the central nervous system, with an emphasis on the retina. Her laboratory has also been working to develop gene therapy for prolonging vision in genetic forms of blindness, and in developing viral vectors for tracing neuronal circuitry. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.