Dr. Jijing Pang currently is a Research Associate Professor at Ophthalmology, University of Florida.

Dr. Pang received his MD in 1988 from China Medical University. He became an attending doctor in Ophthalmology, 2nd Affiliated Hospital of CMU in 1993 before he was sent to Japan for further training in research. Dr. Pang got his PhD in 1999 from Tokyo Medical and Dental University because of his finding on blue light damage to RPE cells. During his PhD course, Dr. Pang found a new type of Retinitis Pigmentosa due to vitamin E deficiency caused by an alpha-tocopherol transferase mutation. Oral administration of vitamin E stopped the progression of visual deterioration for the next 10 years. This experience prompted him to a postdoctoral position in Dr. Blanks’ lab at Oakland University in 1999. He tested adenoviral and lentiviral vectors via subretinal injections to rescue the photoreceptor degeneration seen in rd1 mice. Although the technical difficulties make the subretinal injection-related damage obvious in the mouse, especially in young pups, it is this gene replacement technique that captured his interest and remains the focus of his research program until he becomes a mouse expert.

Dr. Pang joined Dr. Hauswirth’s group and moved to UF in 2002 with a well established mouse retinal surgery system. With rd12 mice, a model of LCA with Rpe65 mutation, he showed that AAV-mediated RPE65 expression lead to biochemical, structural, physioelectrical and behavioral rescues. Recently, Dr. Pang provides the proof that delayed treatment at P90 can rescue the function and morphology of the remaining M-cones, which has important implications for the current ongoing LCA2 clinical trials.

After this concept-proving program, Dr. Pang have expanded his retinal rescue program to many other mouse models of human retinal disease, for example, 1) the Cpfl5 mouse, a model of human achromatopsia with cnga3 mutations, 2) the Cpfl3 mouse, a model of human achromatopsia with a gnat2 mutations, 3) the rd10 mouse, a model of human retinitis pigmentosa with PDEb mutations. Dr. Pang also collaborated with other researchers to rescue many other mouse models of human retinal degenerations, such as rd6, rd17, GC-1-/-, LART-/- and Ccl2/Cx3cr1 deficient mice and RCS rat. Currently, nanoparticles systems are also being tested to widen the application of AAV vectors in retinal gene therapy, which has led to NIH R21 grant funding. Dr. Pang’s recent work on recue of mouse model of Achromatopsia leads to a grant funding as Co-PI from Florida State.

Dr. Pang have published 28 refereed journal articles and made more than 30 presentations at national meetings in the past 5 years. He also gave more than 40 invited seminar talks both nationally and internationally since 2003.

Dr. Pang has been a 2005-2006 Burns Visiting Professorship at University of Missouri-Columbia and 2009-2010 Visiting Professor in Wenzhou Medical College. He received H. Talmage Dobbs Ophthalmic Research Award from Emory Eye Center in 2003. He is also the board member of OCAVER (Overseas Chinese Association for Vision and Eye Research).