Prof. Dr. Paul A. Sieving

Paul A. Sieving is distinguished for important contributions to the genetics and therapy of heritable retinal neurodegenerative diseases that cause progressive vision loss leading to blindness. He is well known for neurotherapeutics studies in developing the first human clinical trial for retinitis pigmentosa using a neurotrophic factor, CNTF. He developed key insights into the pathobiology of X-linked retinoschisis disease through generating a transgenic mouse model which he then treated successfully using AAV gene therapy that restored function and effected structural repair of the retina; this is now in progress for human trial. As Director of the National Eye Institute, NIH, since 2001, he leads a $700M program for all aspects of vision research.