Community Report

It is my pleasure to present our 2025 Community Report on behalf of the Department of Ophthalmology at UW Medicine.   

The department remains resilient in its pursuit of our singular mission: to alleviate suffering from eye disease. We continue to do this through our robust research programs, outstanding patient care and educational programs to train the next generation of physicians.   

In this report you will read about our real world impact in several areas; including:

• The Kren Engineering-based Medicine Initiative funded by a very generous gift from George and Martina Kren;

• The myopia-mitigating spectacles invented by Drs. Jay and Maureen Neitz now used by over one million children worldwide;

• The development of a novel blood test that can tell which parent’s DNA carried the disease-causing gene mutation for retinoblastoma, a rare, hereditary eye cancer.

On behalf of our whole department, I hope you enjoy reading about some of our accomplishments this past year.

Russell N. Van Gelder, MD, PhD
Boyd K. Bucey Memorial Professor and Chair
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Washington
Director, Roger and Angie Karalis Johnson Retina Center
Director, UW Vision Science Center