David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., will discuss his groundbreaking technology, optical coherence tomography at the OHSU Mark O. Hatfield Lecture. (OHSU)

Oregon Health & Science University invites the public and OHSU members to the 2024 Mark O. Hatfield Endowed Lecture to learn from David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., about his path of discovery, innovation and hope.  

The 2024 OHSU Mark O. Hatfield Lecture, “Seeing Small and Aiming Big: The Development and Clinical Impact of Optical Coherence Tomography,” is Tuesday, April 9, from 7 – 8:30 p.m., in the OHSU Robertson Life Sciences Building, Auditorium (1A001). Admission is free; click here to register.

Huang is a 2023 recipient of the National Medical of Technology and Innovation and the 2023 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. Huang is a co-inventor of optical coherence tomography (OCT), a precision ophthalmic imaging technology used more than 30 million times around the world each year.  

In 1990, as a 26-year-old doctoral student at Harvard/MIT, Huang had the “aha” moment that led him, with colleagues James G. Fujimoto, Ph.D., and Eric A. Swanson, M.S., to invent the tool that has revolutionized the diagnosis and treatment of debilitating eye conditions. Huang and his lab are now pioneering uses for OCT in fighting not only diseases of the eye but the brain, the heart and more.   

Today, Huang is the recipient of numerous international awards, author of more than 500 peer-reviewed articles and director of research at OHSU Casey Eye Institute, where he is a practicing ophthalmologist specializing in cornea and refractive surgery.  

Huang’s journey from Taiwan to the most prestigious American research institutions and, with his co-inventors, to the White House to accept a National Medal of Technology and Innovation, is a story of the best of academic medicine. It highlights the value of scientific collaboration that brings drive and fresh ideas together with mentorship and scholarship to advance health around the globe.  

Huang is professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering at the OHSU School of Medicine and holds the Wold Family Endowed Chair in Ophthalmic Imaging at Casey Eye Institute. His original article on OCT, published in Science in 1991, has been cited more than 17,000 times. The holder of 38 U.S. patents, Huang is also cofounder of Gobiquity, maker of the GoCheck Kids smartphone app that has screened more than 5 million preschool children for amblyopia risk factors.