Harvard Doc’s Discovery That Saved Millions

Two hands exchanging a red heart symbol in a surgical setting

A Harvard ophthalmologist helped save the eyesight of millions of people — and most of them have never heard her name.

Story Snapshot

Dr. Joan Miller performed the first patient treatment for a blinding eye condition using a light-activated drug at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in 1995.
Her team identified the protein vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as the key driver of abnormal blood vessel growth in the eye, leading to anti-VEGF therapies now given to millions worldwide.
Miller was the first woman to become a full Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and the first woman to chair its ophthalmology department.
After 22 years leading Harvard’s ophthalmology department, she stepped down to return full-time to research and patient care.

The Treatment That Started With Skin Cancer Research

In 1995, Dr. Joan Miller treated the first patient with choroidal neovascularization — a condition where abnormal blood vessels grow under the retina and leak fluid, destroying central vision — using a technique called photodynamic therapy (PDT). The idea came from cancer research. A light-sensitive drug called verteporfin is injected into the bloodstream, travels to the abnormal vessels, and a low-power laser then activates it to seal those vessels without damaging surrounding healthy tissue.

By April 2000, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved verteporfin, sold under the brand name Visudyne, making it the first drug ever approved to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss in people over 50. Before Visudyne, doctors had no approved drug to offer these patients at all. Early clinical trials did show that lesions sometimes reopened and required repeat treatment, and long-term vision results were still being studied at the time of approval. But the door to drug-based retinal treatment was now open.

Finding the Protein That Changed Everything

Miller and her research group did not stop with PDT. They identified that a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was the main driver of abnormal blood vessel growth in the eye. That discovery pointed directly to a new class of drugs — anti-VEGF therapies — that block this protein and stop the vessels from growing. These injections are now given to millions of patients around the world every year for wet AMD, diabetic eye disease, and other retinal conditions. The scale of that impact is hard to overstate.

Massachusetts Eye and Ear later received $126 million following a legal case tied to the verteporfin research Miller and her colleague Dr. Evangelos Gragoudas conducted, underscoring the enormous commercial and medical value of their work. Miller co-directed the Frederick Yeatts Retina Research Laboratory and the Retina Research Institute at Mass Eye and Ear throughout this period, building the institutional base that made sustained research possible.

Breaking Barriers at Harvard While Running a Research Lab

Miller became the first female physician to reach the rank of full Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. She then became the first woman to chair Harvard’s Department of Ophthalmology, a position she held for 22 years before stepping down to focus entirely on research and clinical care. Those are not footnotes to her scientific work — they are part of the same story. She built and led one of the most productive retinal research programs in the country while holding the top administrative role in her department.

Her publication record reflects that sustained output: more than 280 original research articles and over 95 book chapters, reviews, and editorials. In 2025, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected her as a new member, citing her transformative impact on the United States. She also received the 2014 Champalimaud Vision Award for her antiangiogenic research and the 2015 Mildred Weisenfeld Award for Excellence in Ophthalmology. These are among the highest honors in her field.

What She Is Working on Now

With her department chair duties behind her, Miller is now focused on what she calls neuroprotection — strategies to preserve the nerve cells in the retina before they die, rather than just stopping the abnormal blood vessels that damage them. Anti-VEGF therapy works well at controlling leakage, but it does not rebuild cells already lost. If neuroprotective treatments can be developed and proven in trials, they could extend the benefit patients get from existing therapies. Specific trial results are not yet published, but the scientific rationale is solid.

Miller has also spoken about the need for academic and industry partnerships to develop treatments that work through entirely new mechanisms — not just better versions of anti-VEGF drugs. That perspective reflects hard-won experience. She watched PDT go from a bold idea borrowed from cancer medicine to an approved therapy, then watched anti-VEGF largely replace it as the standard of care. She understands better than most how fast the field moves, and how much further it still has to go.