Ian F Pitha, MD - Midvalley Health Center-Moran Eye Center

Ian F. Pitha, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist who specializes in cataract care and the medical and surgical management of routine and complex glaucoma patients. Dr. Pitha earned his MD and PhD from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He completed his residency at Washington University in St. Louis and was selected for an additional year as chief resident. He then completed a clinical and surgical fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute Glaucoma Center of Excellence. He was a faculty member at Wilmer for 10 years, where he divided his time between patient care, teaching, and running a research lab as a core faculty member in the Center for Nanomedicine. He joined the John A. Moran Eye Center in 2024. Dr. Pitha sees patients at Morans University, Redwood, and Midvalley locations. Research Statement Dr. Pithas research focuses on improving care for glaucoma patients by developing effective and safe therapeutics that eliminate the need for using multiple prescription eye drops several times a day. He is associate director of the Alan S. Crandall Center for Glaucoma Innovation at Moran. Dr. Pitha has helped industry partners design and conduct foundational studies on novel approaches to glaucoma therapeutics and surgical implants. He has published extensively on ophthalmic drug delivery and glaucoma surgical implant design, and he has served as a reviewer for numerous journals and institutes. His lab studies the fundamental processes that underlie remodeling of the sclera the white part of the eye in glaucoma. Progress in this field could lead to therapies that create a protective barrier that shields the eye from high pressures in glaucoma. This novel therapeutic approach, called scleral neuroprotection, would be a paradigm shift in treatment because it could stop vision loss from glaucoma at its earliest stages. He is presently the co-principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health grant on improving glaucoma surgery: Understanding and optimizing the influence of glaucoma drainage implant surface architecture and design to prevent post-operative fibrosis. (R01EY035669)