Gerd Auffarth

Gerd Auffarth, MD, joined the Board of Directors in April 2020. Prof. Dr. Auffarth is an internationally recognized ophthalmologist in the area of research and development as well as clinical care for patients.

He currently serves as the Medical Director of Heidelberg University Eye Clinic. He also currently serves as the Director of the International Vision Correction Research Center (IVCRC) and the David J. Apple Laboratory for Ocular Pathology, which he established in the University Eye Clinic and which are recognized worldwide in the field of implant and biomaterial research. He is a board member of the German (General Secretary) and the European Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgery and is considered one of the most experienced surgeons in cataract and corneal surgery. As a co-founder of the Lions cornea bank in Heidelberg at the Heidelberg University Eye Clinic, Prof. Dr. Auffarth continued to advance transplant surgery (the human cornea) and innovative research areas at the Heidelberg site. In 2004 he was appointed Vice Chairman and Deputy Director of the Heidelberg Department of Ophthalmology; he was awarded Extraordinary Professorship in the Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg in May 2005.

Prof. Dr. Auffarth graduated from Medical School Aachen, Aachen University of Technology (RWTH Aachen), Germany in 1990. In 1992, he received a Max Cade postdoctoral research grant and became a research fellow of Prof. David J Apple at his Center for Intraocular Lens Research, Storm Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC.