He holds the Irving H. Leopold Chair of Ophthalmology and is the founding Director of the Center for Translational Vision Research at the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute.

In 1986, he joined Paul Hargrave's laboratory at that time leading the field in studies of rhodopsin at the University of Florida, thus launching a scientific career in the U.S. that brought him from the biochemistry and structural biology of the visual cycle components to drug discovery and novel treatments of eye diseases.

He joined the faculty of the University of Washington (1992-2005), rising to the level of Professor in the departments of Ophthalmology, Pharmacology and Chemistry, including an appointment at the E.K.

He is the founding Director of the Center for Translational Vision Research in UC Irvine's Gavin Herbert Eye Institute where he develops new classical and genome editing therapies against inherited retinal degenerations.

The technical breakthroughs in noninvasive animal and human imaging have the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis and evaluation of patients with AMD, both in monitoring treatment efficacy and detecting early disease.