Background
Peter L. Gehlbach, M.D., Ph.D. is the J. Willard Marriott, Jr. Professor of Ophthalmology with joint appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Whiting School of Engineering. A member of the Wilmer faculty since 2000, he was recruited by a national search to become the inaugural Maumenee Scholar at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
His clinical practice is composed of international, national, and regional patient populations with the most complex retinal disease. An expert vitreoretinal surgeon, Dr. Gehlbach has been a leader in performing and teaching complex surgical cases that require coordination with multiple ophthalmological specialists. His research interests include cutting-edge surgical approaches to patients with retinal disease and the development of novel surgical tools and approaches to retinal microsurgery.
Dr. Gehlbach’s work has been supported by multiple NIH grants and prestigious foundations with research published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and presented at ophthalmology conferences around the world. The founding director of the former Wilmer Gene Therapy Vector Center, he has served as the director of the Wilmer Echography Center as well as the Retina Fellowship Training Program at Johns Hopkins. He holds multiple patents in both the U.S. and abroad.
Dr. Gehlbach received his B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Vermont, and his Ph.D. in cell and integrative physiology from the University of Minnesota. He completed an internship and residency training in general surgery at the University of Health Sciences, Chicago Medical School. His ophthalmology residency was at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also completed a fellowship in protein chemistry. He completed a medical and surgical retina fellowship at the Casey Eye Institute in Portland.