Pedram Hamrah

About Pedram Hamrah

“My work has focused on advancing the understanding and treatment of complex ocular surface and neuropathic corneal pain by integrating clinical care, translational research, AI, and collaborative leadership.

“Clinically, I have continued to refine and disseminate structured, stepwise approaches to the diagnosis and management of neuropathic corneal pain (NCP) and severe ocular surface disease – conditions that remain underrecognized yet profoundly disabling for patients. Through dedicated tertiary referral clinics, I have emphasized phenotype-driven care that distinguishes inflammatory, neuropathic, and centrally mediated pain mechanisms, enabling more rational and effective treatment strategies.

“On the translational side, my laboratory and collaborative research programs have generated new insights into neuroimmune crosstalk in the cornea, particularly the bidirectional interactions between sensory nerves and immune cell subsets that maintain tissue homeostasis and immune privilege. Recent work has highlighted how disruption of these interactions contributes to nerve loss, aberrant regeneration, and chronic pain, while also identifying immune-derived trophic and anti-inflammatory signals that may be leveraged therapeutically. These efforts span advanced imaging, single-cell transcriptomics, and mechanistic disease models, with the goal of accelerating biologically grounded therapies for ocular surface disease and pain. Among others, we have developed a fully automated AI software with our collaborators for the identification of microneuromas via in vivo confocal microscopy, a biomarker now accepted by the FDA for diagnosis of patients with peripheral NCP.

“Over the past year, I have also played a leadership role in multicenter academic-industry collaborations aimed at translating these discoveries into clinical trials, including first-in-field approaches targeting neuropathic, neurotrophic, and neuromodulatory pathways. These included the very first randomized clinical trial in NCP. In parallel, I have worked to strengthen clinical research infrastructure and cross-institutional collaboration, ensuring that complex phenotypes such as ocular pain are studied with rigor, scale, and reproducibility.

“Collectively, these efforts aim to drive a shift in ophthalmology – from symptom-based management toward mechanism-based care – for patients with severe ocular surface disease and corneal pain, while building durable clinical and research frameworks that can sustain progress in this emerging field.”