José-Alain Sahel

Dr. José-Alain Sahel is the chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the UPMC Eye Center, and the Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair of Ophthalmology. He founded and still heads the Institut de la Vision (Sorbonne Université-Inserm-CNRS) in Paris, one of the largest Vision Research Centres worldwide. Dr. Sahel is known worldwide for his expertise in vision restoration techniques. He has led pioneering efforts in neuroprotection, prosthetic and optogenetic vision restoration, a technique in which cells in the retina are genetically modified to express light-sensitive proteins. Dr. Sahel founded Fovea Pharmaceuticals, which later became the Ophthalmology Division of Sanofi Aventis. He is also a scientific co-founder of GenSight Biologics, Pixium Vision, and Sparing Vision. He is a member of the French and German National Academies of Science.