Opening Keynote
Wednesday, Nov. 13
9am EST
State of gene therapy in ophthalmology
Eric Pierce, MD, PhD
Director, Harvard Ophthalmology Ocular Genomics Institute
William F. Chatlos Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School
Eric Pierce, MD, PhD, is the Chatlos Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, and director of the Ocular Genomics Institute at Mass Eye and Ear. He received his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He did his residency in ophthalmology at Harvard and fellowship in pediatric ophthalmology at Children’s Hospital, Boston, where he also took his first faculty position. He was then recruited to the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he was promoted to associate professor with tenure. Pierce returned to Harvard in 2011 to establish the Ocular Genomics Institute (OGI).
The mission of the OGI is to translate the promise of precision medicine into clinical care for patients with inherited eye diseases. Pierce’s research program is focused on improving our understanding of the genetic causality of inherited retinal degenerations (IRDs), and developing genetically informed therapies for these disorders. His work has lead to the identification of several IRD disease genes, helped highlight the importance of non-coding variants in IRDs, and supported clinical translation of genetic therapies for several genetic forms of retinal degeneration.
Pierce has been an investigator for multiple first-in-human clinical trials of genetic therapies for IRDs, and is the senior PI for the Brilliance trial of in vivo genome editing for the treatment of CEP290 associated retinal degeneration. He served for 10 years as the chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, as a member of the National Advisory Eye Council, and was the inaugural chair of the Pathophysiology of Eye Disease 1 (PED1) study section of the NIH. Pierce was awarded the Proctor Medal by ARVO in 2023.
