Jinghua Chen, MD, PhD

My name is Dr. Jinghua Chen and I graduated with M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Health Science Center of Peking University. I was inspired to pursue ophthalmology from Helen Keller and her quote, “keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.” The story of Helen Keller, a famous American author, disability rights advocate, lecturer, the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, inspired me to devote my whole life to clinical and research work in ophthalmology. I hope my work can bring light to thousands of patients with eye diseases.

After graduation I worked as an attending physician at the Second Teaching Hospital of Peking University. Subsequently, I completed a research fellowship at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard University. The next step on my career journey was an ophthalmology residency at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, and Vitreoretinal fellowship training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

I have a long -term goal to be an excellent surgeon, clinician, scientist and educator. I want to treat vitreoretinal diseases with my knowledge, skills and invention. I consider eye diseases, systemic diseases and patients as a whole system. When I manage the diseases, I would like to restore the balance of the whole system. I take care of my patients with my heart. I worked as the head surgeon for the Boston Retinal Implant. The target diseases of retinal implant are end stage retinitis pigmentosa and advanced age-related macular degeneration. I hope in the future this can restore vision for the blind.

As an ophthalmologist and vitreoretinal surgeon, my clinical interests include inherited retinal diseases, retinopathy of prematurity, age related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and retinal detachment. I would like to improve the efficacy of the current gene delivery system and reduce the inflammation which is caused by gene therapy. I am also working on using artificial intelligence in early detecting, telemedicine screening and early intervention to prevent and manage the retinal disease of premature babies.

My research interests include retinal implant/visual prosthesis and inherited retinal diseases. Ophthalmology field is a combination of medicine, science and art. It was the enthusiasm of many dedicated ophthalmologists, specialists and vision science researchers who made this field fun and exciting. I love retina. Vitreoretinal surgeries make me feel happy, excited and challenged. This is an everchanging field with many new treatments including artificial retina, gene therapy, stem cell therapy and new medications to treat age related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, inherited retinal diseases and other vitreoretinal diseases.

When I am not pursuing my passion of ophthalmology, I like to play badminton, to travel and to cook.