MacularorRetinalEdema near Paramus, NJ

Biography: Ives "Tony" Valenzuela, MD, is a board-certified ophthalmologist and is the Helen and Martin Kimmel Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at CUIMC. He is also an Attending Ophthalmologist at the New York Presbyterian Hospital where he serves as the Associate Director of the Ambulatory Care Network Eye Clinic. His surgical expertise includes traditional glaucoma surgery, minimally invasive glaucoma surgery, glaucoma laser surgery, and cataract surgery. Originally from Bethesda, Md., Dr. Valenzuela received his Bachelor of Science in Biology from Yale University. He received his medical degree from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. After an internship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, he completed his ophthalmology residency at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center where he served as Chief Resident in his final year. He subsequently completed the Advanced Specialty Glaucoma Fellowship Training Program at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore, Maryland where he also served as one of the Heed Ophthalmic Foundation Fellows for the 2022-2023 academic year. Upon completion of his fellowship, Dr. Valenzuela returned to Columbia as a full-time faculty member. Dr. Valenzuela's areas of research primarily focus on understanding glaucoma and glaucoma care in vulnerable populations, surgical and device innovation, and surgical instruction and ophthalmic education for resident and fellow trainees. Clinically, Dr. Valenzuela aims to form partnerships with each of his patients to best manage their glaucoma and maximize their quality of life.

Biography: Dr. Jeffrey Odel is a Professor of Ophthalmology at CUMC and specializes in the field of Neuro-Ophthalmology. Dr. Odel is active in both clinical and research arenas. His present research interest is in developing efficient clinical tools to distinguish vision loss and visual field loss of optic nerve origin from that of retinal origin. He works with Donald C. Hood, Ph. D., of the department of psychology, in a weekly conference where visual fields are correlated with multifocal electroretinography, multifocal visual evoked potentials and spectral domain optical coherence tomography. He will be addressing with Dr. Hood the most cost effective diagnostic pathway of the work-up of visual loss under different clinical scenarios.

Biography: Stephen H. Tsang, M.D, Ph.D. is an acclaimed clinical geneticist in the care of individuals with retinal degenerations. He has been culturing stem cells since 1992 and created the first mouse model for a recessive form of retinitis pigmentosa (RP) by applying genome engineering to stem cell technology in 1995. He successfully treated preclinical models ofPde6a, Pde6b, Mfrp, Rho, Cngb1 and autosomal recessive bestrophin retinopathies. He has expertise in designing and testing genome engineering strategies in pre-clinical models, developing patient-specific knock-in models, generating of patient cell lines and providing care to patients with a precision medicine approach. He is also leading efforts in FDA trials for gene therapies, including PDE6A, RAB geranylgeranyl transferase, RPGR, CNGB3, CNGA3 and ABCA4 retinopathies. He wrote 3 books: "Precision Medicine, CRISPR, and Genome Engineering: Movingfrom Association to Biology andTherapeutics" and "Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Ophthalmology", SpringerPress, NY; and "CRISPR Genome Surgery in Stem Cells and Disease Tissues", Elsevier Inc.He is an elected member of several honorary societies including the American Society forClinicalInvestigation, Alcon Research Institute and American Ophthalmological Society. He is consistently named to various NIH study sections (DPVS standing member 2014-8 and PED2 2022-6) and other review committees; Alcon Research Institute Grant Review Committee (2022-27), Scientific Advisory Panel- Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB, 2019-29), Chair of American Ophthalmological Society Thesis Review Committee (2022-2023). Many of his publications are in widely-read general interest journals such asScience,NEJM,Lancet,Cell Stem Cell,Nature Genetics, andJournal of Clinical Investigation, which attests to the broad impact that his work has had. Dr. Tsang received a resident teaching award in 2008 and was the Columbia Ophthalmology Basic Science Course Director (2006-2018). Dr. Tsang graduated from Johns Hopkins University, where he began his medical genetics training under the tutelage of Professor Victor A. McKusick. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the NIH-National Institute of General Medical Sciences Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Columbia University. Dr. Tsang then completed his residency at Jules Stein Eye Institute/UCLA, followed by studies with Professors Alan C. Bird and Graham E. Holder on improving the care of individuals with macular degenerations.