David Antonetti, PhD

Dr. Antonetti received his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology at The Penn State College of Medicine under the direction of Dr. Leonard Jim Jefferson and was a post-doctoral fellow in Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School under the direction of Dr. C. Ronald Kahn. Upon returning to Penn State, he was one of the first to bring high-level signal transduction expertise to the problem of diabetic retinopathy and the blood-retinal barrier. Over the last 20 years, he has become one of the world’s leading experts in mechanisms of vascular permeability in diabetic retinopathy, the role of the blood retinal barrier in normal physiology, and the molecular mechanisms that underlie angiogenesis and neovascularization. These efforts have allowed him to develop new experimental treatments that show promising pre-clinical results. He has received awards including the Jules Francois Prize for Young Investigator at Ophthalmologia Beligica, the Hinkle Society Mid-career Translational Research Award, and the Most Inspirational Teacher Award for graduate education at Penn State. He also holds the very prestigious Jules and Doris Stein Professorship from Research to Prevent Blindness.