Dr. Allyson Berent
Chief Science Officer
Dr. Allyson Berent is a veterinary internal medicine specialist who serves as the Director of Interventional Endoscopy Services at the largest animal teaching hospital in the world, The Animal Medical Center, in New York City. After graduating from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine she completed a residency in Small Animal Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing a fellowship in interventional radiology at University of Pennsylvania, and a fellowship in Endourology at Thomas Jefferson University, she served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine and Interventional Radiology/ Interventional Endoscopy at the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Berent has a particular focus on medical device development and stem cell therapy through regenerative medicine.
In 2014, Dr. Berent’s daughter was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome. In October of 2015, she joined to Board of Directors for the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics (FAST), becoming the Chief Science Officer for the Foundation. Dr. Berent helped to spearhead the development of a pre-competitive biomarker and outcome measure consortium in order to bring patient focused outcome measures forward for human clinical trials (Angelman Syndrome Biomarker and Outcome Measure Consortium-ABOM) and now serves as the Co-Director of this consortium. Dr. Berent Co-Founded the International Angelman Syndrome Research Council (INSYNC-AS). Through FAST, Dr. Berent collaborated with a consortium of scientists to encourage translational research opportunities, to help bring novel gene-targeted therapies forward toward human clinical trials. Through this work Dr. Berent co-founded GeneTx Biotherapeutics, a company singularly focused to advance an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy through IND enabling studies and a phase 1/2 clinical trial. Dr. Berent served as the Chief Operating Officer of GeneTx Bio, which was acquired in 2022 by Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals. She still serves as a consultant for Ultragenyx.
Currently, Dr. Berent is working to advance numerous cell and gene therapy products through IND-enabling studies into first in human clinical trials for Angelman syndrome through her efforts at FAST and their venture philanthropy model serving as the Chief Development Officer of their drug accelerator called AS² Biotherapeutics.