Gerd U. Auffarth

Gerd Uwe Auffarth (MD, FEBO) (born 28 July 1964) is a German eye surgeon and is Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Heidelberg University Eye Hospital and Head of the David J. Apple Center for Vision Research which includes the David J. Apple International Laboratory for Ocular Pathology.

Background

Gerd Auffarth was born in Delmenhorst near Bremen, North Germany, the fourth child of Arthur and Emma Auffarth. He grew up in Delmenhorst and in Remscheid near Cologne.

Career Auffarth graduated from Medical School Aachen, Aachen University of Technology (RWTH Aachen), Germany in 1990.

Prior to pursuing a career in research and training in ophthalmology, as a fourth year medical student in 1988, he was awarded an Albert Schweitzer Fellowship® to spend three months at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon. There he worked as a junior physician in medicine rotations,(tropical medicine, paediatrics), supervised by hospital medical staff. In 1989 Auffarth published an account (written in German) and illustrated with photographs of his time at the hospital.

In 1992, he was recipient of a Max Kade postdoctoral research grant (Max Kade Foundation, New York, NY, US) and became a research fellow of David J Apple at his Center for Intraocular Lens Research, Storm Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA. Auffarth worked with Prof. Apple between August 1992 and September 1994 in the laboratory that Apple later renamed as David J. Apple International Laboratory for Ocular Pathology.

Returning to Germany, Auffarth continued his research with a project in “Genetic degenerative retinal diseases“ funded by the German Research Council (DFG) at the Heidelberg University Eye Clinic; he completed his Residency and board certification in Ophthalmology in Heidelberg in December 1996; and was awarded the title of Privatdozent and Venia Legendi for Ophthalmology in 1999.

The DGII Society Gerd Auffarth became secretary of the (German Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (DGII) from 2002 to 2010; and the Society's President from March 2012 to February 2016.