Thomas A. Ciulla, MD, MBA

Thomas Ciulla MD MBA graduated from Harvard College and the University of California San Francisco UCSF Medical School, followed by internship and residency at Harvard Medical School, and then fellowship at Tufts Medical School.  He earned an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, specializing in the business of medicine.

Dr. Ciulla was Co-Director of the Retina Service and Retina Angiogenesis Research Laboratory at Indiana University School of Medicine, and remains a volunteer Clinical Professor.  He also serves on the board of directors of one of the largest multi-subspecialty ophthalmology institutes in the Midwest. 

Dr. Ciulla was principal investigator, medical monitor, and member of scientific advisory, data safety monitoring or writing committees in over 100 national clinical trials, including The Comparisons of AMD Treatment Trials (CATT, an NIH/NEI supported trial) and registration trials for most FDA-approved retinal therapeutics. He serves on journal editorial boards, edited several textbooks, presented in over 200 conferences, and co-authored over 200 publications, including the first published US-based randomized clinical trial on any intravitreal therapy in neovascular AMD. He is an active member of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Macula Society, Retina Society, American Society of Retina Specialists, and American Academy of Ophthalmology, with senior honor and achievement awards from the latter two societies. 

Dr. Ciulla is currently Chief Medical Officer, Clearside Biomedical. Prior to joining Clearside, Dr. Ciulla served a VP role, as Medical Strategy Lead-Ophthalmology at Spark Therapeutics, where he defined and led medical strategy to support development and commercialization of Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), the first FDA-approved gene therapy for a genetic disease.