Bio
Dr. Mahajan is a Professor and vitreoretinal surgeon and scientist in the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University. He directs the NIH-funded Molecular Surgery and Omics Laboratory that uses high-throughput methods in genomics, proteomics, and phenomics to identify molecules involved in vitreoretinal disease.
His research team discovered the first gene to cause non syndromic uveitis and is now using protein crystallography to design therapeutic inhibitors for calpain-5. Mahajan and his team performed the first CRISPR gene editing therapy for eye disease in human stem cells. They have also created in vivo models for diabetic retinopathy and uveitis.
Using translational proteomics, Mahajan’s multidisciplinary team is developing new precision health approaches using molecular biomarkers to diagnose retinal disease, select personalized therapies, and decode the anatomic structures of the human eye.
Dr. Mahajan has trained numerous surgical fellows that now operate around the world. He has developed enhanced surgeries for complex cases of retinal detachment, macular hole, macular edema, diabetes, macular degeneration, proliferative vitreoretinopathy, optic maculopathy, uveitis, and others. He has identified safer approaches for vitreoretinal surgery in children and adults, and provides second opinions for complex cases. Dr. Mahajan is among only a handful of surgeons to perform human gene therapy for retinal disease. He has published new surgical biomarker studies that are the first to use personalized proteomics to precisely diagnose and treat otherwise problematic retinal diseases.
Dr. Mahajan earned his bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He then entered the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of California, Irvine. Upon completion, he joined the residency program at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA he completed post doctoral laboratory research as an EyeSTAR Fellow. He next specialized in vitreoretinal diseases and surgery at the University of Iowa’s Retina Fellowship Program and joined as faculty in 2008. He joined Stanford University in 2017.
