ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2020
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Daniel L. Chao, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Shiley Eye Institute at the University of California, San Diego. He completed an MD and PhD in Neurosciences at Stanford University, an ophthalmology residency at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami, and a vitreoretinal surgery fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He is a clinician-scientist, focused on translating new discoveries and technologies to help patients with eye disease.
Dr. Chao’s clinical focus is in the medical and surgical treatment of retinal diseases with a special interest in macular degeneration diabetic retinopathy, and inherited retinal diseases. He is an active investigator in many clinical trials for therapeutics for retinal diseases. He is involved in multiple interdisciplinary collaborations to develop novel imaging modalities and therapeutic approaches for retinal diseases.
Dr. Chao also leads a translational research program focused on developing new therapies for dry macular degeneration and inherited retinal diseases. His NIH-funded research is focused on the role of lipid metabolism in AMD, and has identified a role for a novel lipid enzyme ELOVL2 in regulating molecular age in the retina. He is also an entrepreneur and is co-founder of Visgenx, a startup company focused on developing new therapeutics for dry AMD based on research done in his lab at UCSD and consults and advises multiple early-stage startups in the retina space.