The F.M. Kirby Professorship of Ophthalmology
Established by the F.M. Kirby Foundation in 2006, the chair demonstrates the Foundation’s commitment to medical research and builds upon the Kirby family’s previous and impactful support of ophthalmic research in the Department of Ophthalmology and at the Scheie Eye Institute at Penn Medicine.
Under the leadership of F.M. Kirby, II, and his son S. Dillard Kirby, the Foundation has provided significant support to young scientists and emerging areas of research. At Penn, in addition to creating new professorships, the Foundation established the F.M. Kirby Center for Molecular Ophthalmology in 1994. With the ultimate goal of preventing, treating, and curing hereditary eye diseases through gene therapy, the molecular ophthalmology center is the first of its kind in the world.
Fred Morgan Kirby forever changed American retail by introducing a chain of five-and-dime stores that offered clear, fixed pricing. He became one of the founders of F.W. Woolworth Company and endowed the Foundation in 1931. Successive generations of the Kirby family have continued his tradition of giving to organizations that foster self-reliance or otherwise create strong, healthy communities both in the region and beyond.
Current Chairholder
Kenneth S. Shindler, MD, PhD
Dr. Shindler is a graduate of Brown University and Washington University in St. Louis, from which he earned his MD and a PhD. He went on to complete an Ophthalmology Residency and Neuro-Ophthalmology Fellowship at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and the Scheie Eye Institute (now Penn Ophthalmology and Scheie Eye Institute).
Dr. Shindler's research is examining potential mechanisms to provide neuroprotection of retinal ganglion cells in optic neuritis and other optic nerve diseases. Optic neuritis is an inflammatory disease of the optic nerve that often occurs as part of the neurodegenerative disease multiple sclerosis. Damage to nerve cells can lead to permanent vision loss in these patients. Dr. Shindler's studies are helping to identify new therapies to prevent nerve damage in this disease, and parallel studies demonstrate these novel therapies also prevent optic nerve damage induced by trauma, and induced by glaucoma, a neurodegenerative disease of the optic nerve.
Previous Chairholders
- Jean Bennett, MD, PhD 2007-2022