Dr. Camras, noted glaucoma researcher, dies

Dr. Camras

Omaha, NE

-Carl Camras, MD, whose research helped usher in the use of prostaglandin analogues for the treatment of glaucoma, died April 14. He was 55.

Dr. Camras had been chairman of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences since 2000 and had been affiliated with UNMC since 1991.

A native of Chicago, he was a biochemistry major at Yale University, New Haven, CT, when he first conceived the idea that prostaglandins could lower IOP. He continued his research as a medical student at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, where he studied under Laszlo Bito, PhD.

Dr. Camras completed his internship and residency training at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then completed a fellowship in glaucoma at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York. He remained on the faculty at Mount Sinai from 1983 to 1991, when he accepted the position of tenured professor at UNMC. In 1996, using prostaglandins, Drs. Bito and Camras were the lead investigators in developing latanoprost (Xalatan, Pfizer) for the treatment of glaucoma.

Dr. Camras had published more than 280 articles in scientific journals. He has a patent on a shunt for the treatment of glaucoma, which means that his impact on patients with the disease may continue even after his death.