Donald Kohn

Dr. Donald B. Kohn is a professor of medicine in the department of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as well as a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and of molecular and medical pharmacology. He is a board-certified physician with over 30 years of experience in bone marrow transplantation. Dr. Kohn’s research focuses on the development and application of new methods to treat genetic blood diseases using blood stem cells that have been modified to remove genetic mutations.

Dr. Kohn’s clinical trials of a gene therapy for adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency (also known as ADA-SCID or bubble baby disease) — a condition where babies are born without an immune system and often don’t survive past the first two years of life — have cured more than 40 babies to date. He is now applying similar blood stem cell gene therapy techniques in clinical trials for X-linked chronic granulomatous disease, leukocyte adhesion deficiency and sickle cell disease.

He is a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research and the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.