Martin Friedlander is a professor in the Department of Cell Biology as well as Chief of the Retina Service in the Division of Ophthalmology at the Scripps Clinic, the largest, private non-profit research institute in the world. He is a principal investigator on several clinical trials of pathological blood vessel growth in retinal diseases. His research group of 10 post-doctoral level researchers and 5 graduate students and technicians has identified several unique molecules responsible for mediating pathological blood vessel growth which have been published in leading journals such as Science and Nature Medicine. His laboratory has pioneered the use of adult bone marrow derived stem cells for the treatment of retinal disease. As a retinal specialist, his clinical interests deal largely with retinal degenerative and vascular diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, diabetes and macular degeneration