Biography

Douglas A. Jabs, MD, MBA, is one of the world’s foremost experts in the research and treatment of inflammation of the eye and infections related to immune deficiency. He is internationally renowned for his contributions to the study of uveitis — a potentially blinding inflammation inside the eye.

As Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Faculty Practice Associates (FPA), Dr. Jabs leads an integral part of Icahn School of Medicine that includes more than 900 physicians and surgeons, and provides services ranging from primary care to sophisticated quaternary disease management. The FPA meets the needs of a diverse patient population, with more than 400,000 visits taking place during 2008 alone.

An active researcher and clinician, Dr. Jabs serves as chair of the MUST (Multicenter Uveitis Steroid Treatment) Trial, an NIH-funded research project conducted at 23 national and international clinical centers that compares treatments for patients with severe vision-threatening uveitis. He also chairs the Studies of the Ocular Complications of AIDS (SOCA) Research Group, an NIH-funded, 13-center clinical trials and epidemiology project. His research interests include uveitis, immunology, autoimmune ocular disease, the ocular complications of AIDS, and epidemiology.

Dr. Jabs has received numerous honors and awards, including the Research to Prevent Blindness Olga Keith Wiess Scholar Award, Lew R. Wasserman Merit Award, and Senior Scientific Investigator Award. He has also received the American Academy of Ophthalmology Senior Honor Award and the Ethel Baxter Award for Excellence in Research from the Sjögren's Syndrome Foundation.

Dr. Jabs has delivered several named lectures and is frequently invited to speak at national and international meetings. He is a member of several professional societies, including the Retina Society, the Macula Society, the American Society of Retina Specialists, the American Ophthalmological Society, the International Uveitis Study Group, and the American Uveitis Society, a group he led as president from 2000 to 2002. He served on the National Eye Institute's Visual Sciences Study Section from 1994 to 1998 and the National Eye Institute Intramural Program Data and Safety Monitoring Committee from 2001 to 2009. Dr. Jabs serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Retina: The Journal of Retinal and Vitreous Diseases, and Ocular Inflammation and Immunity, and from 2002 to 2007 he was the executive editor for uveitis for the American Journal of Ophthalmology. He has authored or co-authored more than 220 original publications and more than 40 book chapters.

Dr. Jabs earned his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed an internship in internal medicine at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, a residency in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, a residency in ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute, and a fellowship in rheumatology at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

In 1984, Dr. Jabs joined the Johns Hopkins faculty and spent the next 23 years of his career there, most recently serving as the Alan C. Woods Professor of Ophthalmology and Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Director of the Division of Ocular Immunology at the Wilmer Eye Institute. During his tenure, Dr. Jabs earned both a master’s of science in business degree (in 1998) and a master’s of business administration degree (in 2000) from Johns Hopkins.

In 2007, Dr. Jabs joined Icahn School of Medicine and was named Chair of Ophthalmology. Since his arrival, the Department of Ophthalmology has added seven new clinical faculty and moved into the Center for Advanced Medicine. This expansion has resulted in a 13 percent increase in patient visits, and NIH funding has increased by 30 percent. In 2009, he was named Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Faculty Practice Associates and Dean for Clinical Affairs of Icahn School of Medicine.