Neil M. Bressler

Bressler was born in New Jersey[1] to father Sidney Bressler.[2] Growing up, he played the clarinet[3] and won the Senate Award while attending the Interlochen National Music Camp.[4] After attending Tenafly High School,[5] Bressler enrolled at the University of Michigan for his Bachelor of Science degree.[1] Upon receiving his degree, Bressler married his wife Susan (née Bloom) in a Jewish ceremony on July 8, 1979.[6][7] Together, they earned their medical degrees at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1982[8] and completed their internships and three-year residency in ophthalmology together.[9]

Following his internship and residency, Bressler joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School as an instructor of ophthalmology and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.[1] He then joined the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Hospital's Wilmer Eye Institute in 1988.[10] As an associate professor of ophthalmology in 1995, Bressler received an Olga Keith Wiess Scholar Award from the Research to Prevent Blindness organization to support research into age-related macular degeneration.[11] A few years later, Bressler was the recipient of the Macula Society's Young Investigator Award as an "individual under 50 years of age whose work gives high promise of a notable advance in the clinical treatment of disorders of the eye."[12] In 1999, Bressler was the recipient of the Heed-Gutman Award for displaying evidence of major contributions to ophthalmology, outstanding original discoveries or investigation, and long-term evidence of extraordinary and distinguished leadership service on behalf of ophthalmology.[13] As a result of his academic accomplishments, Bressler was the inaugural recipient of the James P. Gills Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins in 2000.[1]

Alongside his wife, Bressler was the co-recipient of the 2008 Gertrude D. Pyron Award from the American Society of Retina Specialists for "outstanding vision scientists whose work contributes to knowledge about vitreoretinal disease."[14] In 2013, Bressler was appointed editor-in-chief of JAMA Ophthalmology after having served on the journal's editorial board.[15]

In 2017, Bressler co-published a study that demonstrated the ability of a form of AI known as deep learning to accurately detect age-related macular degeneration. Following the study, Bressler and his team evaluated algorithms and comparing methods before ultimately determining that low-shot deep learning does have the potential to overcome limitations imposed by a low number of training images in retinal diagnostics.[16] He was also again named to the Ophthalmologist's Power List for 2020.[17]