Leo A. Kim, MD, PhD
Vitreoretinal Surgeon
Mass Eye and Ear / Harvard
Biography
Dr. Leo Kim is a retina surgeon and a full time member of the Mass Eye and Ear Retina Service who has extensive experience in the clinical and surgical management of a wide variety of retinal diseases.
After obtaining his MD/PhD from the Medical Scientist Training Program at Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Kim attended University of Southern California/Doheny Eye Institute for his ophthalmology residency, where he was recognized with the Doheny Resident Research Award for two consecutive years. He also was awarded the Lillian and Henry Nesburn Award for Research Excellence and was chosen to participate in the 2008 Heed Ophthalmic Foundation Residents Retreat, an honor extended to only the top residents in the United States demonstrating exceptional potential in academic ophthalmology. Following residency, Dr. Kim continued at Doheny Eye Institute as a vitreoretinal surgery fellow and was recognized by the Heed Foundation with a highly prestigious fellowship grant.
Dr. Kim then joined the faculty at Mass Eye and Ear in 2011 as a member of the NIH-sponsored K12 Harvard Vision Clinical Scientist Development Program. He subsequently developed an independent laboratory investigating proliferative vitreoretinopathy and aberrant ocular angiogenesis. His work has been funded by the Department of Defense, and the National Eye Institute via the R21 and R01 funding mechanisms as PI. He has received numerous foundation grants for his research efforts from the American Diabetes Association, Lions Eye Research Foundation, The Grimshaw Foundation, American Thyroid Association, the Karl Kirchgessner, and the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind. Dr. Kim focuses his research on understanding the mechanisms of vitreoretinal disease. He performs basic science research on the molecular mechanisms of proliferative diabetic retinopathy, exudative age-related macular degeneration, and proliferative vitreoretinopathy.