Prof. Dr. med. Peter Szurman is Chief Physician and Clinic Director of the Sulzbach Eye Clinic, Knappschaft Clinics. He is also Director, Klaus Heimann Eye Research Institute (KHERI) in Sulzbach, Germany.
Prof. Szurman studied human medicine in Essen and Paris and completed his specialist training at the University Eye Clinic in Cologne. In 2001, he became a senior physician at the University Eye Clinic in Tübingen. In 2007, he received his habilitation for new therapeutic approaches to macular degeneration. In 2008, he was appointed professor and deputy clinic director and assumed the research professorship for experimental ophthalmic surgery.
Since 2010, Prof. Szurman has been the Director of the Sulzbach Eye Clinic, one of the largest eye clinics in Germany, performing 25,000 operations, 7,000 inpatient and 60,000 outpatient treatments annually. With 2,500 vitrectomies per year, it has been a leader in retinal surgery in Germany since 2015.
Prof. Szurman specializes in minimally invasive eye surgery and the development of numerous innovative surgical procedures and instruments. His areas of expertise include retinal surgery, stem cell therapy, transplantation surgery, and new techniques in anterior segment surgery. Prof. Szurman has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Research Prize of the German Society for Ophthalmic Surgery and the renowned Albrecht von Graefe Honorary Lecture.
In 2018, Prof. Szurman founded the KHERI Research Institute, which includes a cleanroom laboratory, cell culture and materials science laboratory, tissue bank, and international study center. His research focuses on stem cell therapy, tissue engineering, bionic microchip implants, and transplant surgery. Prof. Szurman is the author of 350 scientific publications and holds numerous patents. His projects are funded by the European Union, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI).
