Dr. Flanigan is the Director of the Center for Gene Therapy at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute of Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH), where he holds the Robert F. & Edgar T. Wolfe Foundation Endowed Chair in Neuromuscular Research, and is a Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at the Ohio State University.  He is also the director of the NCH P50-funded Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Specialized Research Center.  His laboratory work is primarily directed toward toward the identification of genetic modifiers of disease severity in the dystrophinopathies, and toward the molecular characterization and treatmen of neuromuscular diseases using both gene replacement and RNA-modifying therapies. His lab has a particular interest in AAV-delivered U7snRNAs modified to target specific exons in the DMD gene, which has led to a first-in-human clinical trial.   He is an experienced clinical trialist, and has conducted multiple clinical trials of gene transfer therapies in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) as well as the childhood neurodegenerative disorders mucopolysaccharidosis types 3A and 3B.