Abdhish Bhavsar, MD, Chair
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A retina-vitreous surgeon and specialist, Dr. Abdhish Bhavsar maintains research interests in macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, endophthalmitis and retinal oxygen metabolism. He is a principal investigator in numerous clinical trials related to macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and venous occlusive disease. He has authored scientific papers and book chapters and presented lectures at local, national and international meetings. He is a clinical correspondent for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
As Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota and an Attending Surgeon at the Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis, Dr. Bhavsar is actively involved in advancing the medical and surgical management of vitreoretinal diseases, and of retinopathy of prematurity and intraocular tumors. He has served as President of the Minnesota Academy of Ophthalmology, Chair of the Phillips Eye Institute Department of Ophthalmology, and state Chair for the Diabetes Eye Exam Initiative.
Dr. Bhavsar established a retina and vitreous surgery practice in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in August 1997. He graduated from Wayne State University School of Medicine with Alpha Omega Alpha honors. He completed his internship in internal medicine at Duke University, his ophthalmology residency at the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary in Chicago, and his retina surgery fellowship training at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, University of California, Los Angeles.
Pravin Dugel, MD
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Dr. Dugel serves as Managing Partner of Retinal Consultants of Arizona, which he joined in 1994, and Founding Member of the Spectra Eye Institute. He is also Clinical Associate Professor, Doheny Eye Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (USC).
Dr. Dugel has authored more than 200 papers, 35 book chapters and has been invited to lecture at prestigious meetings, Visiting Professorships and Universities worldwide. He is on the Editorial Board of several major journals. Dr. Dugel is an internationally recognized clinical researcher, having been a primary investigator in over 50 multicenter clinical trials.
Dr. Dugel is on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS), Chairman of the ASRS Research and Therapeutics Committee and Chairman of the AAO Media Relations Committee. Internationally, he is on the Board of Directors of the Asia Pacific Vitreoretinal Society. He has received numerous awards, including the Heed Foundation Fellowship Award, The Ronald G. Michels Surgical Fellowship Award, ASRS Honor Award, and the Academy's Senior Honor Award and AAO Secretariat Award. Dr. Dugel has been named "one of the best 35 ophthalmologists in the USA" by the Becker Institute.
Dr. Dugel graduated Summa Cum Laude from Columbia University and attended UCLA School of Medicine. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at the Doheny Eye Institute, USC School of Medicine, his medical retina fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, and his surgical retina fellowship at the Doheny Eye Institute, where he served on the faculty as the Resident Director.
Susan Bressler, MD
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Dr. Bressler joined the faculty at The Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. In 2000, she became only the second woman physician promoted to Professor of Ophthalmology at The Wilmer Eye Institute. In May 2004 she was inducted as the inaugural recipient of the Julia G. Levy, PhD Professor of Ophthalmology. Dr. Bressler has a large national and international referral practice at The Wilmer Eye Institute. Her main research interest has been collaborative efforts in clinical trials —serving as principal investigator of an image reading center that has served as a central unit for many clinical trials and epidemiologic investigations, as Vice Chair of the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network (DRCR.net), and as principal investigator of a participating clinical center in several major clinical trials. Most studies have specific emphasis on the treatment of both non-neovascular and neovascular age-related macular degeneration and all aspects of diabetic retinopathy. She has published 196 peer reviewed articles and 54 book chapters. Editorial Board positions have included American Journal of Ophthalmology, Survey of Ophthalmology, Retina, EyeNet Magazine, the Health After 50: The Johns Hopkins Medical Letter, and the Wilmer Retina Update.
She received the Rosenthal Award from the Macula Society, the Olga Keith Weiss Scholar Award from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB), a RPB Physician-Scientist Award, a Senior Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, a Senior Honor Award from The American Society of Retina Specialists, the Gertrude Pyron Award for Lifetime Achievement of Outstanding Research, and was the Inaugural recipient of the Neil Miller Medical Student Teaching Award at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Bressler graduated summa cum laude from Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA in 1978. She attended The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha and received the Paul Ehrlich Award for Clinical Investigation at Hopkins' Young Investigators' Day. After her internship in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1983, Dr. Bressler pursued an ophthalmology residency at Harvard Medical School's Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, a fellowship in medical retina at Wilmer Eye Institute, and additional retinal surgery training at Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary.
Paul Mitchell, MD, PhD, FRANZCO, FRCOphth
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Dr. Mitchell is Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Sydney (Westmead Hospital). He works clinically as a medical retina specialist and is Ophthalmology Director for the Sydney West Local Health Network covering 1 million residents. His clinical focus is management of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic and other vascular retinopathies and on systemic disease effects on the eye.
He has made significant contributions in the fields of public health and ophthalmic epidemiology via the landmark Blue Mountains Eye Study (BMES) yielding over 300 publications to date, with papers in all major eye journals, as well as leading medical journals, including NEJM and Lancet. To date, he has published over 700 papers in peer-reviewed journals plus 70 books, chapters or letters. He currently has over 10,000 citations to his work. Total career research funding exceeds $20 million. He was awarded the 2004 Association of International Glaucoma Societies (AIGS) award for research in glaucoma epidemiology, the Medal of the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) in 2007, its Norman Gregg medal in 2010, an Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology in 2009. He presented the Optic Lecture at the RCOphth in 2012. He is currently Vice-President of the Association for Research in Vision & Ophthalmology (ARVO). He has been a guest lecturer at annual meetings of Ophthalmological Societies in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore. Thailand, Mexico, Poland and Portugal, and has presented regularly at the annual Amsterdam Retina Debates.
He has a strong interest in applications of evidence-based medicine in ophthalmology, particularly in new therapies for age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular oedema and retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion, and in both the development and evaluation of evidence-based treatment guidelines. Recent work has led to a series of papers covering the cost effectiveness of therapies for retinal disease, and he has a strong interest in health economics as it applies to treatments to prevent blindness and visual impairment. Dr. Mitchell has been a clinical examiner for RANZCO, teaches medical retina in a fellowship program at Westmead Hospital), and regularly conducts instructional courses at major meetings, including RANZCO, APAO, AAO, ARVO.
Edwin Stone, MD, PhD
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Dr. Stone is an HHMI investigator, the Seamans-Hauser Chair of Molecular Ophthalmology, professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, and director of the University of Iowa Institute for Vision Research. His research is focused on inherited eye diseases, with a special interest in locating and characterizing genes that cause photoreceptor disease. He is also very interested in strategies for bringing new genetic discoveries to the clinic as rapidly as possible. In collaboration with Val Sheffield, M.D., Ph.D. (HHMI investigator, University of Iowa), he has identified many genes responsible for important human eye diseases and has characterized these in large international patient populations.
Recently, he has also begun to tap the power of stem cell biology for elucidating disease mechanisms and for developing vision restoring therapy. Dr. Stone now has a collection of cell lines from over 500 patients with inherited eye disease, which serve as a living complement to his collections of 600 pairs of eyes from human donors and 60,000 human DNA samples.
Dr. Stone chaired the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Task Force on Genetic Testing and was lead author on the Academy's Recommendations issued early in 2012.
Dr. Stone received his Ph.D. degree in cell biology and an M.D. degree from Baylor College of Medicine. He completed a residency in ophthalmology and a fellowship in vitreo-retinal diseases and surgery at the University of Iowa.
