Thaddeus P. Dryja is an American ophthalmologist and geneticist known for his role in the 1986 discovery of the Rb tumor suppressor gene. He was the David G. Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and was the Global Head of Ophthalmology Research at

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loc ...

. He was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 1996.

Education

Dryja graduated from

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

in 1972 with a B.A. in chemistry and from

Yale University Medical School The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary ...

in 1976. He interned at Waterbury Hospital in Connecticut from 1976 to 1977. He was a research fellow in experimental eye pathology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School from 1977 to 1978. He completed an ophthalmology residency at Harvard Medical School in 1981. From 1981 to 1983 he was a research fellow in genetics and ophthalmology at the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Harvard Medical School.

Career

In 1983 Dryja joined the faculty of the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, becoming a full professor in 1992. In 1992 he also became director of the David G. Cogan Pathology Laboratory at the Massachesetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. In 1993 he became the David Glendenning Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. In 1996 Dryja was elected to the American National Academy of Sciences. The citation states that "Dryja is a pioneer in the molecular genetics of human eye disease. He has made seminal discoveries relating to the pathogenesis of retinoblastoma and retinitis pigmentosa and identified the mutant genes causing these conditions". His inaugural article was "Gene-based approach to human gene-phenotype correlations". In 2006 Dryja became the head of Translational Medicine in Ophthalmology at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR), the

research institute in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. From 2009 to 2017 he was the global head of ophthalmology research, supervising a research group of over 200. In 2017 he returned to Harvard Medical School as a clinical professor and eye pathologist.

Selected papers

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References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dryja, Thad Yale School of Medicine alumni Harvard Medical School faculty Living people American medical researchers Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Year of birth missing (living people) Yale College alumni