The purpose of this thesis is to explore the issue of gene therapy. Background information is given to explain what gene therapy is and some of the ways it is accomplished. A discussion of organizations that regulate gene therapy is given. Also, some of the ethical issues that arise due to gene therapy are introduced. A determination of public knowledge is attempted by the use of a survey that was distributed to students and professionals. Statistical analyses are computed using the survey data to determine whether any correlation exist between certain groups of subjects and their responses to some of the survey questions. Finally, the thesis contains a section devoted to suggestions for further study.