José-Alain Sahel Awarded 2026 ARVO Proctor Medal for Groundbreaking Research Achievements
Research News
Dr. Sahel’s research has led to several emerging retinal disease therapies that have moved into clinical trials.
José-Alain Sahel, MD, FARVO, one of the world’s most revered and respected experts in retinal disease research and therapy development, has received the 2026 Proctor Medal from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). Established in 1949, the highly prestigious award honors outstanding research in basic or clinical ophthalmologic sciences. Dr. Sahel will present the Proctor Award Lecture at the 2026 ARVO meeting, May 3-7, in Denver.
Among his many achievements, Dr. Sahel established two of the foremost retinal disease research centers in the world: The Institut de la Vision in Paris and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Vision Institute, where he currently serves as the Endowed Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Ophthalmology.
Through his leadership and groundbreaking achievements in research, Dr. Sahel has co-founded several companies, including GenSight, a developer of an innovative optogenetic therapy which uses a microbial opsin for vision restoration. In a clinical trial, the approach enabled people with advanced vision loss to identify objects on a table.
Dr. Sahel also co-founded SparingVision, which is conducting a Phase 2 clinical trial for SPVN06, an emerging gene-agnostic therapy for people with retinitis pigmentosa and related conditions. SPVN06 expresses rod-derived cone-viability factor, a cone-preserving protein discovered by Dr. Sahel and his late colleague Dr. Thierry Léveillard. The RD Fund, the Foundation’s venture philanthropy arm, is an original investor in SparingVision.
Dr. Sahel also created Street Lab with the Institut de la Vision to study the performance of visually impaired individuals in daily-life tasks, evaluate innovative adaptive solutions, and assess benefits of therapies. A closely affiliated facility was opened recently at UPMC.
Dr. Sahel has received the Wolf Prize in Medicine, with Dr. Botond Roska, and was elected to the Académie des Sciences-Institut de France, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Academia Europaea, AAP and the National Academy of Inventors. In 2015, he received the Llura Liggett Gund Award, the Foundation’s most prestigious research award.
Dr. Sahel has been an active and insightful member of the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board since 2001 and currently serves as a Vice Chair.
