Jay Neitz (born 1953) is an American professor of

ophthalmology Ophthalmology (, ) is the branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis, treatment, and surgery of eye diseases and disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a ...

and a color vision researcher at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

Education and career

Neitz grew up in Montana. He attended

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the List of oldest schools in California, oldest public university on the West Coast of ...

for his undergraduate, finishing with a BA in psychology and physics in 1979. He went on to receive his PhD at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

in 1986 under the direction of Gerald Jacobs. His thesis title was ''Variations in Color Matching Among Humans with Normal Color Vision''. After his PhD, he stayed at the same institution as a postdoctoral researcher for several years before starting a permanent position at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He moved to the

in 2009, where he is currently the Bishop Professor of Ophthalmology.

Research

Neitz's research lab, which is run jointly with his spouse Maureen Neitz, works on the biology of vision disorders, particularly related to color-blindness. Their work on treating color-blindness in monkeys received some attention in the popular science press. In this work, they gave gene therapy to two red-green color-blind squirrel monkeys, combined with training. After five months, the monkeys began to be able to distinguish red and green. There is some potential that a similar treatment may be eventually developed for humans. Neitz and coauthors have also proposed that gene therapies of this type might in the more distant future be able to give tetrachromatic vision to humans with normal vision. In 2010, Neitz and his wife Maureen Neitz were awarded the Pepose Award in Vision Science by Brandeis University.

References

External links

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Neitz Vision
the laboratory of Jay Neitz and Maureen Neitz
Reweaving the Rainbow
Lecture at th
Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology
October 10, 2013 {{DEFAULTSORT:Neitz, Jay American ophthalmologists American evolutionary biologists American vision scientists Color scientists University of Washington faculty San Jose State University alumni University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Living people 1953 births