3: Eye See, In Orbit With | Dr. Howard Krauss

Before he became a surgeon in Santa Monica, Dr. Howard Krauss worked as an aerospace engineer for Hughes Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California. In making the switch, he traded one kind of orbit for another. He came out of earth’s orbit and into the human ones: the two sockets in the skull that hold the eyes and all their accompanying structures. He is one of a few surgical neuro-ophthalmologists on the planet who specializes in surgery within the orbit. He and his colleagues at PNI have pioneered minimally invasive techniques for treating diseases that threaten vision, and for using the orbit as an entry point for removing tumors in the brain. Dr. Krauss works on the forefront of “retinal analysis,” looking for microscopic changes in structures there that signal underlying diseases including Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. New research there, he says, could show that the eye really is a window into the human body and mind. For more information: pacificneuro.org | pacificbraintumor.org | (310) 829-8265