Edward K Wong Jr MD

Dr. Edward K. Wong, Jr. is Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Chief of Neuro-Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). After graduating from Stanford University, he received his MD from the University of Southern California (Keck Medical School). Following a fellowship in Neurology at the Institute of Neurology, Queens Square, London, he completed three years of neurological surgery before his Ophthalmology residency at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA. Dr. Wong serves as a consultant to community physicians in both Comprehensive Ophthalmology and Neuro-Ophthalmology.

Dr. Wong’s primary research interest has been the study of brain disease related to visual dysfunction. His early work on multiple sclerosis (MS), a cause of blindness and double vision, resulted in the first report in the world’s literature of low plasma zinc levels in MS. His research team then discovered that 2’3’cyclic-nucleotide phosphodiesterase was abnormally low in the red blood cell membranes of MS patients. This work suggests that there is a biogenetic factor in MS.

Current research involves the treatment of blindness (or homonymous hemianopia) following a cerebrovascular accident (CVA or stroke), for which there is no known treatment. In collaboration with Professor Schmielau of Luebeck, Germany, he has established a program at UCI dedicated to the restoration of vision to these severely disabled patients.