Anat Loewenstein

Prof. Anat Loewenstein is the Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Tel Aviv Medical Center, Israel and Vice-Dean at the Faculty of Medicine at the Tel Aviv University, Israel. She is a retina specialist, dealing with both medical and surgical retina. Her main research interests is the development of technologies for early detection, monitoring and treatment of AMD.

Prof. Anat Loewenstein talks about her main mentors during her educational path back at the medical school, the residency period and the fellowship she attended. Among the most important mentors she mentions Dr. Neil Bressler and Dr. Susan Bressler, Prof. Julia Haller and Prof. Eugene De Juan.

Prof. Loewenstein talks about her main professional achievements, including breakthrough research projects like the development of early detection technologies for AMD, her research on the non-toxicity of bevacizumab to the retina and sustained-release drug delivery devices for retinal diseases.  She considers her mentoring and teaching young retina specialists as a great achievement in her career, together with the development of guidelines and participation to various consensus groups all over the world.

Prof. Loewenstein says that her international participation in international expert groups and meetings makes her a better physician for her patients. She thinks that the discussion with her peers contributes greatly to her professional growth and helps her bringing home increasingly better ways of taking care of patients in her daily routine. The knowledge she gains by discussing and exchanging ideas with her international peers contributes to constantly improve and keep up to date the ophthalmology practices in her country.

Prof. Loewenstein rates her profession 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.  Contributing to the development of treatments for retinal disease is one of the greatest satisfactions in her life. Her family is very important too, even more than her career. The greatest passion she has is her work, from the treatment of patients to surgery, but also teaching and learning. She also likes spending time with her family and doing sports like running and swimming.

Prof. Loewenstein speaks about vascular retinal diseases stating that we have pretty much the solution, even if we can improve it and make it less burdensome. She thinks that the next step is the treatment of degenerative retinal diseases, such as geographic atrophy, retinitis pigmentosa and other blinding diseases for which no treatment is currently available.