Education: BSc(hon) in Chemistry (Magna cum Laude) from the University of Ottawa, Canada in 1979; Medical degree: MDCM from McGill University in Montréal, Canada in 1983; Internship in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Canada 1984; Ophthalmology residency at UBC, Vancouver, Canada till 1988. Completed a fellowship in Uveitis under RB Nussenblatt in 1990, and a fellowship in VR surgery in 1992 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. He obtained a PhD in Ocular immunology from the University of Amsterdam in 2000.
Positions: Head of the Clinical Division of the Laboratory of Immunology of the NEI from 1991 to 1996. Department head and professor at the University of Amsterdam from 1996 to 2006. Head of VR surgery at Middelheim hospital from 2006 to 2009. Founded and became head of the MicroInvasive Ocular Surgery Center (MIOS) in Lausanne, Switzerland – a clinic specialized in retina and ocular inflammation. He is a present or past visiting professor in Gent University, Belgium; University of Leiden, the Netherlands.
Research interests: ocular inflammation, ocular pharmacology, ocular imaging (retinal and inflammatory disorders), retinal surgery, and robotics. He has spearheaded the development of ocriplasmin for ophthalmic applications (patent holder), the use of intraocular methotrexate for ocular lymphoma. He is one of the first individuals to use transverse OCT. He initiated the development of the Preceyes robot for eye surgery, the first robot ever to perform high precision intraocular surgery.
He has authored or co-authored over 160 articles in peer reviewed international journals, 30 chapters or book chapters, over 50 non peer reviewed articles. He has given more than 500 invited lectures at meetings or named lectures. Recipient of several prizes, he is (or has been) on the board of medical societies (national and specialized), as well as a consultant to numerous pharmaceutical companies and learned societies.
He is a member of the Macula Society, Jules Gonin Club, IUSG, IOIS, in addition to numerous national societies.