Paul Sieving

Member of the Jury

Prior to becoming Director of the National Eye Institute in the USA in 2001, Dr. Sieving was the Paul R. Lichter Professor of Ophthalmic Genetics at the University of Michigan Medical School where he founded the Center for Retinal and Macular Degeneration.

Dr. Sieving is known for studies on the genetic basis of human hereditary forms of retinal and macular degenerations and for work on the basic biology of the retinal cells that degenerate and lead to progressive vision loss. His clinical investigations focus on developing treatments for individuals suffering from these conditions, termed retinitis pigmentosa, including use of neurotrophic factors and gene transfer therapy.

An honours graduate of Valparaiso University in history and physics, he completed a masters degree in nuclear physics at Yale University and studied at Yale Law School. He received his M.D. from the University of Illinois Medical School and earned a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering also from the University of Illinois.  He completed an ophthalmology residency at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary and then did postdoctoral studies in retinal physiology with Dr. Roy H. Steinberg at the University of California, San Francisco, and a medical fellowship in inherited retinal degenerations with Dr. Eliot L. Berson at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Sieving has received numerous awards and honours, including the Alcon Research Institute Award and the Senior Scientific Investigator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness.  He is a member of the American Ophthalmological Society and the Academia Ophthalmological Internationalis.  He has been listed among the “Best Doctors in America” on many occasions.  He was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of the USA in 2006.