José-Alain Sahel, MD, Named to the Academia Europea
June 3, 2025
José-Alain Sahel, MD, distinguished professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and director of the UPMC Vision Institute, has been named as a member of the Academia Europea, the pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, and Sciences.
Established in 1988, the Academia Europea aims to advance scholarship across a range of disciplines in the humanities and sciences, including biological sciences and medicine, physical sciences and technology, mathematics, letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics, and law. Membership is by invitation only following peer nomination and encompasses more than 5,500 scientists across Europe, as well as European scientists living in countries around the world.
Dr. Sahel is widely regarded as a top international expert in retinal diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited retinal condition. He has spent his career pursuing new and better therapies to preserve and restore vision, including the development of a novel retinal prosthesis and the employment of optogenetics – the use of light to activate genes – for vision restoration.
