Thaddeus Dryja

Thaddeus P. Dryja, MD is a physician and noted biomedical researcher. He is recognized for the 1986 discovery of the Rb tumor suppressor gene, mutations in which lead to a cancer of the eye known as retinoblastoma.
Thaddeus (Ted) is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale College and earned an MD degree from Yale University School of Medicine (1976). He did an ophthalmology residency at Harvard Medical School (1978-1981). After fellowships in ophthalmic pathology and in molecular genetics, in 1983 he joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the staff at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. At the Infirmary, he headed a research lab studying the molecular genetics of hereditary diseases of the retina, and he practiced general ophthalmology and ophthalmic pathology. Major accomplishments from his research laboratory included compelling evidence for the recessive nature of oncogenic mutations at tumor suppressor genes like the retinoblastoma gene, the identification and cloning of the retinoblastoma gene, and the identification of 17 different genes responsible for forms of retinal degeneration (e.g., retinitis pigmentosa) and retinal dysfunction (e.g., stationary night blindness).
He became the David G. Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard in 1993 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1996. In December, 2006, he joined the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is now the Global Head of Ophthalmology Research. Dr. Dryja is also currently a Professor of Ophthalmology, part-time, at Harvard Medical School and is one of the attending eye pathologists in the Cogan Eye Pathology Laboratory at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.