Dr. José-Alain Sahel is the chair and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, director of the UPMC Eye Center, and the Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair of Ophthalmology. He is also a Professor of the Sorbonne Medical School.
Dr. Sahel studied medicine at University Denis Diderot and completed a residency in Ophthalmology at the Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Strasbourg. He also was a research fellow at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and a visiting scholar in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.
Dr. Sahel is world renowned for his work in vision restoration techniques including stem cell implantation, gene therapy, retinal prostheses, and optogenetics. He has also developed novel high resolution imaging technologies for retinal and optic nerve conditions. Dr. Sahel is a co-inventor on more than 40 patents and a member of 11 editorial boards.
He previously served as chairman of the Departments of Ophthalmology at the Quinze-Vingts National Eye Hospital, the Rothschild Ophthalmology Foundation, the Vision Institute, and the French National Reference Center for Retinal Dystrophies. He has supervised dozens of clinical trials and directed a network of more than 90 European clinical trial centers focused on retinal diseases.
