Paul F. Palmberg MD, PhD

Paul F. Palmberg, MD, PhD, now a Professor of Ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, knew early on that he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become an ophthalmologist. At age 19, he decided that he also wanted to be a scientist. “I wanted to find out if being ‘dual-wired’ would let me see connections between science and medicine that scientists or clinicians were unlikely to come up with independently,” he recalls.

In 1978, he introduced Modified MK Media, an improved solution for maintaining corneas for transplantation which was adopted worldwide. In the 1980s, his discoveries of simplified methods for detecting early diabetic retinopathy led to a decade-long trial by the National Institutes of Health which concluded that tightly controlling blood sugar significantly lowered the risk of retinal and kidney damage in diabetic patients. Dr. Palmberg is best known, however, for his role in helping to clarify the relationship between the level of pressure in the eye and how well a glaucoma patient retains peripheral vision.

In 2000, Palmberg was co-recipient of the International Glaucoma Review Award for the most significant glaucoma research of the year for his finding that lowering eye pressure sufficiently could halt glaucoma damage in nearly all patients with advanced damage. Dr. Palmberg has authored or co-authored 84 journal articles and book chapters, lectured in 55 countries, and trained 52 clinical fellows and 103 foreign observer fellows. Palmberg hopes in his last decade of practice to develop teaching modules in both English and foreign languages to explain the new concepts for treating glaucoma.