An internationally recognized expert in inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), Dr. Mark Pennesi is leading groundbreaking research on gene therapy and gene editing. After starting his career at the Retina Foundation as an intern, he came home to Dallas and joined the Retina Foundation in 2024 to find innovative solutions to vision loss and expand access to patients worldwide.
Dr. Pennesi leads the Retina Foundation’s first clinic focused on inherited retinal diseases, which has already impacted more than 1,000 patients. He has served as the lead investigator for 27 first-in-human clinical trials for IRDs, including the first trial to use CRISPR gene editing in humans (recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine) at the OHSU Casey Eye Institute in Portland. He has published 193 peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals.
Dr. Pennesi and the Retina Foundation team were chosen as a 2025 grant recipient of The Crystal Charity Ball to establish the first Pediatric Inherited Retinal Degeneration Center in Dallas, bringing hope to the estimated 400 children in our community who are living with rare IRDs. He has been the lead investigator for numerous first-in-human clinical trials for inherited retinal diseases, including the first trial to use CRISPR gene editing in humans. He serves on the executive committee for the Foundation Fighting Blindness Clinical Consortium and is a member of their Scientific Advisory Board.
Dr. Pennesi has been honored by Research to Prevent Blindness and Foundation Fighting Blindness. He was awarded The Macula Society 2025 Young Investigator Award and Lecture, given to an individual under 50 years of age whose work gives high promise of a notable advance in the clinical treatment of disorders of the eye. Before coming back to the Retina Foundation, Dr. Pennesi was a member of the Casey Eye Institute faculty where he rose to the position of Kenneth C. Swan Endowed Professor in Ophthalmology and served as chief of the Paul H. Casey Ophthalmic Genetics Division.
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