ReachMD

Dr. Jennifer Sun, an Associate Professor in the Harvard Department of Ophthalmology, graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School and completed ophthalmology residency and a vitreoretinal surgical fellowship at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. From 2005-2009 she participated in the Harvard Vision Clinical Scientist K12 program and received a Masters in Public Health in 2007 at the Harvard School of Public Health. Since 2005, Dr. Sun has served as Chief of the Center for Clinical Eye Research and Trials of the Beetham Eye Institute, Joslin Diabetes Center. She is the nationwide Protocol Working Investigator for the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network (DRCR.net) and as such, is instrumental in the proposal, multi-level review and implementation of all new DRCR.net protocols. From 2012-2014 she served as one of three Vice Chairs for the Network. She is also a member of the DRCR.net's Operations Group and Executive Committee. Dr. Sun has chaired 5 nationwide, multicenter clinical studies, including the DME FOUND Study (Diabetic Macular Edema Found by OCT Utilization at Non-Ophthalmic diabetes care visits) evaluating the use of point-of-care noninvasive retinal imaging at primary diabetes care visits to identify patients at risk for vision loss from diabetic macular edema and a phase 1 trial of an intravitreous plasma kallikrein inhibitor for diabetic macular edema. She currently serves as nationwide Protocol Chair of both the DRCR.net Ultrawide Field Imaging Study (Protocol AA) and the DRCR.net Prevention of Vision Threatening Complications in Eyes at High Risk through Anti-VEGF Treatment (Protocol W) Study.

Dr. Sun is the CME Editor for JAMA Ophthalmology and the Section Editor for the Microvascular Complications: Retinopathy section of Current Diabetes Reports. Her recent publications have included articles in both the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. She received the 2008 ARVO/Alcon Early Career Clinician-Scientist Research Award and was recognized in 2016 with the Research to Prevent Blindness Physician-Scientist Award. Her research projects include the search for protective factors against retinal complications in diabetes. She also leads active studies identifying biomarkers of functional and anatomic outcomes in diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema through utilization of advanced imaging techniques such as adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy and spectral domain optical coherence tomography angiography.