Dr. O'Brien has been recognized as a top ophthalmologist by U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, Philadelphia Magazine, and Castle Connolly.
PHILADELPHIA, PA, March 04, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Dr. Joan O'Brien has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Drawing on decades of expertise in medicine and education, Dr. O'Brien serves as Director of the Scheie Eye Institute and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). She also teaches as the Nina C. Mackall Professor of Ophthalmology at UPenn's Perelman Medical School.
Originally from Boston, Dr. O'Brien graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College as valedictorian. At Middlebury, she received highest departmental honors in psychology and religious studies. She went on to obtain her medical degree at Dartmouth Medical School, where she was awarded the Dean's Medal as the outstanding graduating senior. Dr. O'Brien completed her internship in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, followed by research fellowships in immunology at Harvard Medical School and in molecular ophthalmic pathology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Whitehead Institute at MIT. Dr. O'Brien subsequently completed an ophthalmology residency at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and an ocular oncology fellowship with orbital and oculoplastics training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Dr. O'Brien was then appointed as an Assistant Professor at UCSF, where she remained for 17 years. After only five years, she achieved tenure. During her time at UCSF, Dr. O'Brien was Director of the ocular oncology unit, receiving world-wide referrals for cancer to the eye and ocular ednexa. She was also appointed Vice Chair for Medical Student Education and was elected to the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. Dr. O'Brien also directed an NEI-funded CLIA laboratory, which focused on ocular genetics research. This research has advanced diagnostic and treatment options for several diseases. Working with Boris Bastian's lab at UCSF, Dr. O'Brien discovered and characterized two novel oncogenes (GNAQ and GNA11) in uveal melanoma, which were published in Nature and New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. O'Brien also identified numerous unique pathogenic variants in the retinoblastoma gene (RB1). This testing, which allowed retinoblastoma therapy to be directed according to underlying genetic risk, was offered nationwide at no charge through NEI's eyeGENE™ initiative.
While at UCSF, Dr. O'Brien received the Physician-Scientist Award from Research to Prevent Blindness, a leading eye research foundation. One year later, Dr. O'Brien was given the National Medical Association's Rabb-Venable Ophthalmology Award for excellence in medical students' and ophthalmology residents' education. In 2006, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) granted Dr. O'Brien the Senior Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the field of ophthalmology and the AAO's scientific and educational programs.
Dr. O'Brien joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, when she was named the Chairman of the Ophthalmology Department and Director of the Scheie Eye Institute. In 2013, Dr. O'Brien was elected to Institute of Medicine, now the National Academy of Medicine, one of the highest honors a doctor can receive. In recent years, she has received the AAO's Secretariat Award, the USC Keck School of Medicine's Laureate Award, and the Retina Research Foundation's Gertrude D. Pyron Award for Lifetime Research Achievement. In 2018, she was inducted into the American Ophthalmology Society, an honor society for ophthalmologists. For many years, including the present, Dr. O'Brien has been recognized as a top ophthalmologist by U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, Philadelphia Magazine, and Castle Connolly. She has been named as a top cancer doctor by Newsweek and Philadelphia Magazine. In 2020, she was an elected member of Who's Who in America. Throughout her career, Dr. O'Brien has authored more than 250 publications.
During her twelve years as Chair, Dr. O'Brien has overseen the expansion of UPenn's Ophthalmology Department: the faculty has grown from 24 to 68 individuals, and the Department now offers 17 subspecialties and sees more than 130,000 patient visits each year. The Department is now consistently one of the top two recipients of National Eye Institute funding nationwide. Since 2010, Dr. O'Brien has helped raise over $40M in philanthropy.
In addition to her contributions as Chair, Dr. O'Brien has led a large-scale, NIH-funded genetics study on glaucoma in African-ancestry individuals. The study is titled Primary Open Angle African-Ancestry Glaucoma Genetics (POAAGG). Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world today and is familial in nature. Only 2% of genetic studies have been performed in patients with African-ancestry. Black people are five times more frequently affected by glaucoma and fifteen times more severely affected. More than 10,200 individuals in Philadelphia have enrolled in the POAAGG study and have agreed to be recontacted. They have provided full genetic and phenotypic information. This information can be used to study the genetics of glaucoma and other diseases that over-affect Black people yet remain seriously understudied. This summer, at the end of her two terms as Chairman of UPenn's Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. O'Brien will be appointed as Director of a new genetics center at UPenn to continue her important and collaborative research.
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