David Lee Guyton, MD

Michelle M. Hessen, O.D., is an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute and is a member of the Ocular Surface Disease and Dry Eye Team. Dr. Hessen specializes in ocular surface diseases. In addition to providing general ophthalmic care and managing pre- and post-operative care of cataract surgery patients, she treats patients with dry eye associated with various conditions, including Sjogren's Syndrome, Graft vs. Host Disease and other autoimmune conditions. She also evaluates patients with blepharitis and allergic conjunctivitis.Dr. Hessen received her optometry degree from Nova Southeastern University in Florida. She completed her optometry residency in ocular disease at the Baltimore VA Medical Center and has also completed a nine-week PROSE Clinical Fellowship at Boston Foundation for Sight, adding Prosthetic Replacement of the Ocular Surface Ecosystem (PROSE) device fitting to her clinical interests and skills.

Dr. David Valle is a professor of pediatrics and ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and former director of the Johns Hopkins Department of Genetic Medicine. He also serves as a geneticist for the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.Dr. Valle holds a bachelor’s degree and medical degree from Duke University. He completed a pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins University before joining the Johns Hopkins faculty. He is interested in the genetic contributions to health and disease. He is the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Inherited Disease Research. Over the years, his laboratory has discovered the genetic causation for more than 20 diseases, including those responsible for inborn errors of metabolism, inherited retinal degeneration, disorders of cellular organelle biogenesis and genetic variations that contribute risk for common disorders such as schizophrenia.Dr. Valle also serves as director of the Predoctoral Training Program in Human Genetics, as well as co-director of the Genes to Society program. He was a 2014 recipient of the annual Victor A. McKusick Leadership Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, which recognizes individuals whose professional achievements have fostered and enriched the development of human genetics as well as its assimilation into the broader context of science, medicine and health.

Bryce Chiang, M.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor of ophthalmology and a glaucoma specialist at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine East Baltimore location. His clinical interests include the medical and surgical management of glaucoma and cataract. After receiving his combined bachelor’s/master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from The Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Chiang completed joint M.D./Ph.D. degrees at the Emory University School of Medicine. During his doctorate in biomedical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Chiang became interested in ophthalmology through his research in ocular drug delivery. He served as a medicine intern at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, and completed his ophthalmology residency, glaucoma fellowship and innovation fellowship at the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University. Dr. Chiang’s research interests include targeted ocular drug delivery, specifically within the suprachoroidal space and to the optic nerve head. He studied the pharmacokinetics of microneedle injections into the suprachoroidal space while pursuing his doctorate at Georgia Tech, and maintains an interest in the suprachoroidal space as a means of altering disease trajectory. Furthermore, despite the optic nerve head being the site of disease in optic neuropathies, no therapies exist that treat the optic nerve head. By directly treating the diseased tissue, targeting therapeutics to the optic nerve head may enable paradigm shifting therapies for optic neuropathies. Targeted delivery to the optic nerve head may also serve as a research tool to query the pathogenesis of glaucoma.