Reza Dana

Reza Dana
Reza Dana in his lab at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (May 2016)
Born	Reza Dana
Alma mater	St. Paul's School Johns Hopkins University The University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary Wills Eye Hospital Harvard Medical School
Known for	Dry Eye Disease Corneal Transplantation Research
Scientific career
Fields	Medical research, Immunology, and Ophthalmology
Institutions	Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Harvard Medical School Harvard University

Reza Dana is an American ophthalmologist and immunologist.

Biography

Dr. Reza Dana M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc, F.A.R.V.O. is the Claes Dohlman Chair in Ophthalmology, Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, and Senior Scientist & W. Clement Stone Scholar at The Schepens Eye Research Institute, as well as the Director, Cornea & Refractive Surgery, Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, Vice Chairman of Harvard Department of Ophthalmology, and Director of the Harvard Medical School Cornear Center for Excellence. Dr. Dana completed his bachelor’s, graduate, and medical education at Johns Hopkins University and performed his residency at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, followed by fellowships in Cornea and External Diseases at the Wills Eye Hospital, in Uveitis at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and in Ocular and Transplantation Immunology at The Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dana also holds a Masters in Management from Harvard university. He is a 'Gold Fellow' of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO).

Dana is one of the most widely cited ophthalmologists and vision scientists, with over 19,400 citations of his work as of Fall 2017. He has authored over 400 articles and reviews, 320 of them as peer-reviewed scientific papers. His h-index is 72. As a result of his scientific scholarship, he has been the recipient of multiple awards, including the Special Scholar Award, Physician-Scientist Award, Lew R. Wasserman Award, and The Senior Scientific Investigator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness, the Cogan Award from ARVO, the LSU Chancellor's Award in Neuroscience and Ophthalmology, the Alcon Research Institute Award and the Endre Balazs Prize from the International Society for Eye Research (ISER). In 2018, he will receive the Fridenwald Award from ARVO. Dr. Dana is Associate Editor of IOVS, and is on the editorial boards of the journals Cornea, The Ocular Surface and Scientic Reports among other. In addition to his basic laboratory investigations, Dr. Dana leads a large translational research program at Mass. Eye and Ear that has received a number of IND permits from the FDA in just the last few years Apart from his many clinical trainees, Dr. Dana has trained over 110 post-doctoral fellows, students, and scientists from 32 countries in his laboratory to date. His research has received continuous support from the NIH for the past 20 years.

Education and postgraduate training

Diploma Summa Cum Laude, Saint Paul’s School, Concord NH Bachelor of Arts (BA) Phi Beta Kappa, Johns Hopkins University Master of Public Health (MPH), Johns Hopkins University Doctor of Medicine (MD), Johns Hopkins University Master of Science (MSc) in Health Care Management, Harvard University Illinois Eye & Ear Infirmary Wills Eye Hospital, Fellow Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Fellow Harvard Medical School, Fellow

Awards and honors

Year	Award	Institution/Organization
1981	National cum Laude Society	Johns Hopkins University
1984	Phi Beta Kappa (Junior Year)	Johns Hopkins University
1989	Henry Strong Dennison Award for Research	Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
1990	Travel Fellowship	National Eye Institute, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
1995	Fellowship (Ocular Immunology)	Heed Ophthalmic Foundation
1996	Knapp Fellow	Society of Heed Fellows (Special Recognition Award)
1996	Clinical Scientist Career Award (KO8)	National Institute of Health
1999	Invited Participant, National Science Writers Seminar	Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation
1999	William & Mary Greve Scholar	Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation
2002	Achievement Award	American Academy of Ophthalmology
2002	Kronfeld Memorial Lecturer	Illinois Eye & Ear Infirmary
2002	Fry Memorial Lecturer	Wills Eye Hospital
2003	Cogan Award	Association for Research In Vision and Ophthalmology
2003	Dohlman Lecturer	Harvard Dept. of Ophthalmology
2004	Alta Lecturer and visiting professorship	University of California, San Francisco
2004	Keynote Speaker	28th All-Japan Cornea Conference, Yonago, Japan
2005	Physician Scientist-Merit Award	Research to Prevent Blindness
2006	Service Recognition Award	American Academy of Ophthalmology
2007	“Best Doctors of America” (selected by peers)
2007	“Best of Boston” Ophthalmologists	Boston Magazine
2008	Alcon Research Institute Award	Alcon Inc.
2009	Lew R. Wasserman-Merit Award	Research to Prevent Blindness
2011	David Easty Lecturer	Bowman Club, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh
2011	Joaquin Barraquer Lecture	Spanish Congress of Ophthalmology, Oviedo, Spain
2012	LSU Chancellor’s Award in Neuroscience and Ophthalmology	Lousiana State University
2012	Mentoring Award	European Young Investigator Network for Ocular Surface Inflammation
2013	Senior Scientific Investigator Award	Research to Prevent Blindness
2013	Gold Fellow	Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO)
2013	Keynote Speaker	Biennial Meeting of the European Society of Ophthalmology (SOE)
2014	Thygeson Lecture	Ocular Microbiology and Immunology Group, Chicago, IL
2014	A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award	Harvard Medical School
2015	Kersley Lecture	British Ocular Surface Society, London, England
2015	Keynote Address and Certificate of Honor	European Association for Vision and Eye Research (EVER), Nice, France
2016	Roger Meyer Lecture	University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center
2016	Mooney Lecture	University College Dublin, Rep. of Ireland
2016	Endre A Balazs Prize	International Society of Eye Research
2017	Streilein Lecture
2018	Friedenwald Award	Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology

Mentoring

In addition to research, Dana has focused on education of trainees, both clinical and research. This has included teaching of postdoctoral research fellows, clinical fellows and residents, and medical students and graduate students enrolled in various Harvard Medical School curricula. Overall, he has served as primary mentor to over 100 trainees in ophthalmology and eye research from over 30 countries. In addition, as a strong believer in the importance of clinical scientists in bridging the wide gap between basic science and clinical applications, Dana directs the Harvard-Vision Clinical Scientist Development Program funded by the NIH K12 mechanism- with the express intent of recruiting, training, and retaining the brightest young minds to Harvard to contribute to research efforts. He has served as PI/Director for this program since its inception at Harvard Ophthalmology in 2004. In 2014, he received the A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award at Harvard Medical School.

Research focus

Dana is an ophthalmologist and immunologist whose principal research interest is in determining the molecular and cellular regulation of ocular immunity. The aims of his research program are to (1) unravel the molecular and cellular processes that are responsible for initiating and sustaining immuno-inflammatory responses in the cornea and anterior segment, and thereby (2) develop specific molecular targeting strategies to promote mechanisms that engender immune unresponsiveness without placing the eye or the patient at risk of toxicity or secondary infections. Areas of investigation include transplantation, angiogenesis (blood vessel development), stem cells, and dry eye disease. In addition, Dr. Dana has active collaborations in the field of bioengineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Northeastern University for applications in surgical adhesives, drug delivery and ocular prostheses. Dr. Dana’s research is supported by several federal grants among others.

External links

• "Research Profile: Reza Dana, M.D., M.Sc., MPH - Mass. Eye and Ear". www.schepens.harvard.edu.
• Memarian, Jahandad (14 September 2017). "Reza Dana: Success Begins Outside Your Comfort Zone".
• "Reza Dana, M.D., M.Sc., MPH - Mass. Eye and Ear". www.masseyeandear.org.