About Mark P. Breazzano

In private practice, Mark Breazzano has already built up impressive experience as a high-volume retina surgeon, as well as serving previously as full-time faculty at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute.

After graduating cum laude from Hamilton College and magna cum laude from SUNY Upstate Medical University, Dr. Breazzano received several scholarships and was elected into Alpha Omega Alpha honor medical society, before taking on an internship at Yale University and ophthalmology residency at Vanderbilt University. While at Vandebilt, he won both the university’s inaugural Lefkovitz Discovery Award and Ophthalmology Times’ First Place Resident Writer’s Award. He then completed his retinal surgery fellowship at Columbia University, where he was recognized for Best Clinical Research Paper.

Throughout his career, Dr. Breazzano has been directly involved in both research and clinical trials, as well as mentorship. He holds a patent for an eyeball stabilizing device that is based on the structural framework of the Hoberman sphere – a favourite toy from his childhood – and has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles, book chapters, and abstracts in ophthalmology and retina. He is a member of American College of Surgeons, the Retina Society, American Society of Retina, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology, as well as serving on the editorial advisory board for Ophthalmology Times.

Of the current retina landscape, Dr. Breazzano says: “There are so many exciting advancements across retina such as gene therapy, multimodal imaging, and multi-targeted immunologic therapy. I also think the large database analyses and consolidation of information is an innovative trend. This approach should help guide relationships and outcomes between diseases, old and new therapies, as well as complications and comorbidities, that were previously not possible or too nuanced. Of course, all of these facets have limitations and our collective experience should refine them over time.”

During his time in ophthalmology, he has been impacted by a “list of legends and mentors far too long for this segment”, but notes that it was ophthalmologist and eye pathologist, Ann Barker-Griffith, who first mentored him as a medical student when he was just beginning his foundational understanding of retinal anatomy and disease. Towards the end of his training, he also says that Stanley Chang and Larry Yannuzzi helped him to learn the big-picture approaches to retinal surgery and medical retina, respectively. “The wisdom, generosity, patience, and mentorship that they, and others in between, gave me, cannot be understated,” he says. “I hope I can give back half as much to my fellows, residents, and medical students as they each provided me.”

In his downtime, Dr. Breazzano enjoys hiking and biking along the Erie Canal with his wife and growing family, as well as traveling and exploring the coffee scene in new cities.

From the nominator: "Mark is one of the most promising young vitreoretinal surgeons of his generation — a high-volume surgeon who has already published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, holds a patent, and directs a vitreoretinal fellowship. His work on endogenous candida endophthalmitis and retinal screening practices is genuinely unique in ocular infection, and his honors – from the national first place resident writer's award to an ASRS honor award and Columbia's best clinical research paper – speak to a rare combination of surgical skill, scholarship, and leadership. He has a very bright future, and the field is better for it."