Thomas A. Fuchsluger MD PhD FEBO MSc MHBA is the appointed Full Professor and Chairman at the Department of Ophthalmology, Rostock University Medical Center, Hanseatic City of Rostock, Germany. He is the organizer of the annual Baltic Sea Eye Conference and of the German-Polish Winter Academy. He currently serves as Secretary General of the European Association for Vision and Eye Research (EVER, 2023-28) and is one of four members of the Executive Board of the Northern German Ophthalmological Society (VNDA e.V.). He serves as Associate Editor for Acta Ophthalmologica and for the Journal of EuCornea and is member of the editorial office of “Die Ophthalmologie”, Springer Medicine Publishers. From 2019 –21 he was one of six members of the Annual Meeting Program Committee, Cornea Section, Association. of Research in Vision & Ophthalmology (ARVO).
Prior to this, he served as Vice Chairman at the Department of Ophthalmology, Heidelberg University (2018-19) and as appointed University Professor for Cornea and the Anterior Ocular Segment at the Department of Ophthalmology, Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (Chair: Prof. Dr. F: Kruse, 2014-18). He was Head of the Erlangen Cornea Bank and Head of the Cornea Laboratory focusing on corneal endothelium and tissue engineering.
He completed his medical education at Ulm University, Germany, after several internships abroad (e.g. Singapore General Hospital, Queen Mary’s Hospital London, University Hospital Buenos Aires) and performed his residency and further ophthalmological training at the Center for Ophthalmology, Essen University Hospital, Germany. In 2006, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Dept. of Ophthalmology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine (Chair: Prof. S. Kinoshita). From 2008 until 2010 he performed a postdoctoral fellowship at Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, USA, working of gene and cell therapy approaches to protect the corneal endothelium (Laboratory Dr. R. Dana). After his return to Germany he accepted a consultant and faculty position at the Dept. of Ophthalmology, Dusseldorf University Hospital (Chair: Prof. Dr. G. Geerling) where he served as Head of the Lions Eye Bank North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2014 he was appointed University Professor at Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.
Dr. Fuchsluger published in renowned peer-reviewed journals not only in the field of ophthalmology (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences) but also in gene and cell therapy as well as in in biomaterial journals, such as in Human Gene Therapy, Gene Therapy, Nanomedicine, Acta Biomaterialia or Material Science and Engineering. Besides having published review articles, he also was (co-) author in book chapters on corneal transplantation or on biosynthetic corneas (e.g. in Copeland and Afshari’s “Principles and Practice of CORNEA”, Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers, 2013). He has delivered numerous invited talks and has been recipient of several merit, research or best paper awards (e.g. Young Investigator Merit Award, Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society; Best Paper Award of the European Eye Bank Association).
He served as Section Editor for the British Journal of Ophthalmology (2016-21). In addition, he is reviewer for several research councils, amongst the Medical Research Council (UK), Fight for Sight (UK), DLR (Germany). He performs ad hoc reviewer services for currently 26 peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Fuchsluger was and is the Secretary General (2017-18, 2022-2027) and Vice President Elect (2017-18) of the European Association for Vision and Eye Research (EVER) after having finished his function as Chair of EVER Section “Cornea and Ocular Surface” (2012-17). Furthermore, he was elected in 2015 as member of the Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC), “Cross-sectional Group Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine” of the Association of Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). For ARVO, he contributed as member of the Members-in-Training Committee (2009-2012) and was appointed as member of the “Publications Committee” (2015-2018). In 2024, he was once again elected by ARVO’s Cornea Section as delegate to the AMPC. In addition, he was recently appointed as responsible person of the Cornea Section, German Ophthalmological Society (DOG), to establish the national guideline on “Management of chemical and thermal burns of the ocular surface“.