DEBORAH FERRINGTON
Chief Scientific Officer
Doheny Eye Institute
Deborah Ferrington, PhD, is Doheny Eye Institute’s Chief Scientific Officer and holds the Stephen J. Ryan – Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Endowed presidential chair. Dr. Ferrington’s career includes 20 years of experience in academic research, and she is internationally recognized for her ground-breaking research on age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among the elderly.
With an aging global population, it is estimated that approximately 290 million individuals will suffer from AMD by the year 2040, imposing heavy burdens on health care systems worldwide. With limited and largely ineffective treatment options available to most AMD patients, there is an urgent need for new therapeutic strategies, which has been the focus of Dr. Ferrington’s research. Her laboratory’s investigations in human donor eyes led to the novel finding that defects in the mitochondria, which make the energy required for cells to function, is an early pathological event in AMD.
