Rajat Agrawal

Rajat Agrawal is currently Assistant Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology, Study Director for the Artificial Retina Implant Project and Co-Director of Intraocular Implants at the Doheny Eye Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States. He underwent medical schooling, ophthalmology residency, and a fellowship in vitreo-retinal surgery and diseases in India. Following the fellowship, he worked for more than eight years in Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, India, as a Consultant Ophthalmologist and Vitreo-Retinal Surgeon. He was later invited to the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong to teach and train local ophthalmologists in retinal surgical techniques. He later accepted an invitation from the Government of the Commonwealth of Bahamas to join as Consultant Ophthalmologist and Chief of Vitreo-Retinal Surgery at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Nassau, to develop retinal surgical program in the country, as well as train local ophthalmologists, and residents from the Department of Ophthalmology, Yale Medical School, New Haven, CT. He was later recruited into the Doheny Eye Institute, Los Angeles, in 2003, where he is currently based. In addition to the routine work, he directs the Artificial Retinal Implant project. This project, of which he is a co-investigator, is funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Energy (DOE) and by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which aims at developing an artificial epiretinal device that will be surgically placed on the retina in patients with advanced retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. He has been involved in the project from conception of the device (for which he is a patent holder) to the current on-going clinical trials. Apart from his main focus on development of Artificial Retina for the blind, he is also involved in studies utilizing stem cells for treatments of retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and macular degeneration (AMD). His other projects include development of an intraocular camera that will not only integrate with the intraocular retinal prosthesis, but also act as a low vision aid for people with visual impairment. He is also working on development of drug delivery devices for chronic ocular diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma as well as implantable pressure sensor devices that will constantly monitor the pressure of the eye. His clinical focus is on management of ocular conditions like age-related macular degeneration and other degenerative diseases, vascular occlusions, diabetic retinopathy and ocular trauma. Besides being a reviewer for scientific work in prestigious academic journals internationally, he has also written several papers in the peer-reviewed journals and authored chapters in leading textbooks on retinal surgery. Dr. Agrawal is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and the Association in Research and Vision in Ophthalmology (ARVO). He has also won national awards and has been featured extensively in ophthalmic magazines and in other press.