Ian Pitha, MD, PhD

Dr. Pitha is an Assistant Professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute and a board-certified ophthalmologist active in both clinical and research settings. He completed his MD and PhD training in pharmacology and toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School where he also conducted post-doctoral research in treatment of macular degeneration. Dr. Pitha then moved to Washington University in St. Louis for his ophthalmology residency and an additional chief residency year. Following residency, Dr. Pitha completed a clinical fellowship year at the Glaucoma Center of Excellence at the Wilmer Eye Institute and then joined the faculty at Wilmer. Dr. Pitha's research at the Center for Nanomedicine at Wilmer focuses on improving glaucoma therapy, ocular drug delivery, and surgical approaches to glaucoma treatment. He combines his prior training in pharmacology with additional training in animal models of glaucoma and biomaterials for sustained drug delivery with the goal of improving current approaches to glaucoma treatment. His lab has worked coordinately with that of Dr. Quigley who has shown in the last decade that alterations of scleral structure and biomechanical behavior can alter glaucoma progression. Dr. Pitha's lab focuses specifically on the role of scleral cells in affecting scleral remodeling with the goal of discovering approaches to beneficially alter scleral biomechanics to prevent glaucomatous vision loss.