BEHOLD T HE E Y E
The Perfect Organ G
NEW CENTER FOR OCULAR IMMUNOLOGY — THE WORLD’S FIRST UNIVERSITY-BASED CENTER OF ITS KIND — AIMS TO RESTORE VISION THROUGH PERSONALIZED MEDICINE, TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH, AND INNOVATION.
BY LAURA ERTEL
04
et Victor L. Perez, MD talking about the eye, and he quickly becomes animated. “The eye is the perfect organ!” he says with a smile. “It is very accessible: We can actually see it; we can image it; and we can treat it directly, because it’s right in front of us.”
These are distinct advantages to Perez, an ocular immunologist who specializes in diagnosing and treating eye conditions caused by inflammation – conditions that can lead to partial or total vision loss and reduced quality of life due to blurry vision, foreign body sensation, redness, itching, and pain. “Inflammation causes many diseases in the body—and the eye is no different,” he says. “By understanding how the immune system behaves, or misbehaves, we can determine ways to control the inflammation and prevent vision loss. We can also apply what we learn about the eye to inflammation in other, less accessible, parts of the body. And, because many diseases of the body also attack the eye, we can also use this knowledge to improve treatment for patients with a wide variety of complex diseases.”
DUKE EYE CENTER
2019
Perez is so optimistic about ocular immunology’s potential to improve the treatment of inflammatory eye diseases and eye-related complications from diseases like cancer and diabetes that he came to the Duke Eye Center in 2017 to launch, and lead, The Frances and Stephen Foster Center for Ocular Immunology. The new center was made possible through generous gifts
