J. William Harbour, MD

BIO

J. William Harbour, M.D. is a pioneering retina specialist, ocular oncologist and cancer researcher whose discoveries have transformed the management of patients with uveal melanoma and other eye cancers.  He attended Johns Hopkins for medical school, Wills Eye Hospital for residency, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute for retina fellowship, University of California San Francisco for ocular oncology fellowship, and Washington University in St. Louis for post-doctoral cancer research training.  He was on the faculty of Washington University for 16 years, rising to the rank of Distinguished Professor before being recruited to the University of Miami in 2012 to become the Mark J. Daily Endowed Professor and Vice Chairman for Translational Research at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, and Associate Director for Basic Science at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2021, Dr. Harbour was recruited to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to become the Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, where he continues his clinical practice, educational activities, and research program. His research has been continuously funded for over 20 years by the National Institutes of Health, Research to Prevent Blindness, Alcon Research Institute, and other numerous other sources. Among his many transformative contributions, Dr. Harbour invented a multi-gene prognostic test for uveal melanoma that has become the standard of care in North America. He discovered that mutations in BAP1 are the most important cause of metastasis in uveal melanoma, and that SF3B1 mutations are associated with intermediate metastatic risk in this cancer.   More recently, he identified therapeutic targets and immune checkpoint molecules that have led to new clinical trials for metastatic uveal melanoma.