People

Dr. Liangbo “Linus” Shen is a vitreoretinal surgeon, clinician, and scientist whose work integrates ophthalmic imaging, biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, statistical modeling, and clinical insight to improve the understanding and treatment of retinal diseases. Dr. Shen graduated summa cum laude from Duke University with a degree in Biomedical Engineering, where he co-invented a patented stereoscopic heads-up display system for ophthalmic surgery and advanced intraoperative optical coherence tomography. He subsequently earned his medical degree cum laude, the highest academic honor awarded by Yale School of Medicine, where he co-developed the “entry time realignment” statistical framework for long-term natural history studies of retinal and neurodegenerative diseases, including geographic atrophy, choroideremia, Stargardt disease, Huntington’s disease, and USH2A-associated retinopathy.

He completed ophthalmology residency at the University of California, San Francisco, where he pursued clinical and translational research in imaging biomarkers of age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal degenerations. His work has identified novel imaging biomarkers of disease progression and advanced quantitative approaches for measuring retinal atrophy, including pixel-based analysis methods designed to improve clinical trial efficiency and enable more precise assessment of treatment response.

Dr. Shen is currently a vitreoretinal surgery fellow at Duke University School of Medicine. His research focuses on developing computational imaging tools, AI-assisted grading platforms, and clinically meaningful endpoints for geographic atrophy and inherited retinal diseases. He has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications in leading ophthalmology journals, including Ophthalmology, JAMA Ophthalmology, American Journal of Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Retina, Ophthalmology Science, British Journal of Ophthalmology, and Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.

Dr. Shen has received numerous national awards and honors, including Foundation Fighting Blindness Clinical Research Fellowship Award, the Heed Fellowship, the AUPO/RPB Resident and Fellow Research Forum Award, multiple institutional research awards at UCSF and Yale and multiple conference awards. He has presented his work at major national and international meetings, including ARVO, AAO, ASRS, AUPO, Retina Society, and VBS. Through PRIME Lab, Dr. Shen aims to build a collaborative research program that combines engineering, artificial intelligence, statistical modeling,  advanced retinal imaging, and clinical insight to accelerate therapeutic development and improve care for patients with retinal disease.