After studying at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Ildefonso began his tenure at the University of Florida in the lab of Dr. Alfred S. Lewin, a contributor to the successful Luxterna gene therapy program, the first FDA-approved gene therapy for the eye. Today, the translational emphasis of his research is retinal neurodegeneration and methods to target it using adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors delivering anti-inflammatory or antioxidant genes.