Val C. Sheffield, M.D., Ph.D.
Val C. Sheffield is Professor of Pediatrics and Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. He is known for the development of methods and improved approaches to facilitate human genetic disease gene identification. This work includes major contributions to the completion of a high resolution polymorphic genetic map of the human genome (the first completed goal of the Human Genome Project). Dr. Sheffield has contributed to a better understanding of hereditary blindness, as well as other disorders that affect vision including diabetes and hypertension. This work includes identifying the genes involved in specific blinding disorders. Dr. Sheffield and his collaborators are responsible for the identification of numerous genes causing inherited blindness including such disorders as glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa, and a syndromic retinopathy known as Bardet-Biedl Syndrome. Current work in the Sheffield laboratory is focused on development of novel therapies. Dr. Sheffield received his Ph.D. and M.D. with honors from the University of Chicago. He completed a Pediatric residency and Medical Genetics fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He joined the faculty at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in 1990, where he holds the Roy J. Carver Chair in Molecular Genetics. He has served on the advisory boards of the National Eye Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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