Jose Cunha-Vaz, M.D., Ph.D. is Emeritus Professor of Ophthalmology of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and President of the Association for Innovation and Biomedical Research on Light and Image (AIBILI), a not-for-profit Clinical Research Organization. He is now Honorary Editor of Ophthalmic Research, Coordinator of the Diabetic Retinopathy and Retinal Vascular Diseases Section of the European Vision Institute Clinical Research Network (EVICR.net).

He became Chair and Director of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Coimbra Hospital in 1972.

In 1978 he moved to the United States to become a full-time Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of the Retina Service at the University of Illinois at Chicago until his final return in 1986 to Portugal. He returned to his original position, Professor of Ophthalmology and Head of Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Coimbra (1972-2008) creating in 1994 a large Research Institute dedicated to vision research, Institute of Biomedical Research on Light and Image (IBILI) and the Association for Innovation and Biomedical Research on Light and Image (AIBILI) a not-for-profit clinical research center.

His scientific discoveries have influenced generations of other scientists and have had a major impact on clinical practice. These have included the discovery of the anatomical location of the Blood-Retinal-Barrier (BRB). Based largely on his research, the blood­ retinal-barrier is now known to prevent noxious chemicals within the blood stream from entering the eye (as in the brain). Early in his career (1960’s), while performing ultrastructural (electron microscopic) and physiological research at the Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, he was the first to identify the morphological and functional basis for the blood-retinal barrier; namely, “tight junctions” between the endothelial cells of retinal blood vessels. His findings were later confirmed to occur also in the blood-brain-barrier. His discoveries were absolutely critical and fundamental to future pharmacologic and physiological research on normal functional processes in the eye and to the understanding of diseases now known to be caused directly by breakdown of the BRB; for example, pathological leakiness in important, prevalent, and blinding disorders, including cystoid macular edema; ocular neovascularization, with its associated passage of plasma and blood cells into the interior chambers of the eye; wet macular degeneration; diabetic retinopathy; and many others.

Invention of the technique of vitreous fluorometry (in the 1970’s), led to the creation of a commercially available diagnostic instrument, the Fluorotron Master, which makes it possible to quantify (non-invasively) how much pathological leakage is occurring within the eye in many serious diseases, including neovascularization of the front and the back of the eye, such as diabetic retinopathy, sickle cell retinopathy, iris neovascularization(rubeosis), optic neuritis, and many others.

He pioneered multimodal macular mapping (early 2000’s), to combine different imaging information on such diseases as diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.

Invention of the “Retmarker” (late 2000’s), a technique to non-invasively identify and quantify microaneurysm formation (and disappearance) which led to the identification of different phenotypes of diabetic retinopathy progression. These different manifestations of diabetic microangiopathy have different risks for the development of clinically significant macular edema and proliferative retinopathy. He also patented a new automated technique of noninvasively measuring abnormal extracellular fluid in the eye by identifying, and for the first-time quantifying, OCT leakage (2000-teens).

Dr. Cunha-Vaz has authored and co-authored over 500 peer-reviewed papers and books. He was elected member of Academia Ophthalmologica lnternationalis in 1994. He is a founding member of the European Academy of Ophthalmology (2004). He has received the Diaz Caneja Prize of the University of Valladolid (1993), the Paul Henkind Award of the Macula Society (1998), the Alcon Research Institute Award (1998), the Eva Kohner Award from the European Society of Diabetes (2008), Helmholtz Medal of the European Society of Ophthalmology (2008), the Gian Battista Bietti Gold Medal of the Italian Society of Ophthalmology (2010), the BIAL Award for Clinical Medicine (2012) and the Weisenfeld Achievement Award of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (2014), Premio Nacional de Saude, (Portugal 2014), the Albert C. Muse Prize in Ophthalmology (2014). Prize Pfizer / Sociedade de Ciencias Medicas de Lisboa (2015) EURETINA Award Lecture (2016), Gold Medal Award (Sociedade Espanola de Retina y Vitreo (2018). He has been elected an honorary member of Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology, Spanish Society of Ophthalmology and International Retina Society – Club Jules Ganin. Dr. Cunha­ Vaz has received the Orders of Merit and Henry the Navigator from Portugal.