Tony Succar, PhD, MScMed (OphthSc), is Director of the innovative Master of Science in Clinical Trial Management program:
Dr. Succar serves as the Associate Director for the Regulatory Knowledge and Support (RKS) Core, Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SCCTSI) and is an invited instructor for the Alpha Clinic Clinical Trial Investigator Training Program (ACCTITP), University of California, Irvine.
He completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Department of Ophthalmology and supervises Doctor of Regulatory Science candidates and Doctor of Pharmacy Scholarly Projects, as well as 590 and 490 Directed Research Projects. He is passionate about applying his regulatory, clinical and translational research experience to teaching the next generation of clinical trialists, regulatory specialists and clinician-scientists. He has developed and launched three new courses: RSCI536, RSCI537, RXRS421 and is the lead instructor for RSCI517, RSCI522 and RSCI518. His research interests focus on developing strategies for optimizing complex clinical trial designs investigating:
- Pharmaceuticals
- Stem cell and gene therapies
- Medical devices
- Combination products
He earned his Master of Science in Medicine (Ophthalmic Science) from The University of Sydney, in the development of a bionic eye. His research involved designing and conducting a first-in-human clinical trial investigating bioelectrical stimulation parameters: frequency, pulse duration and amplitude of currents within the visual system, for eliciting the perception of phosphenes – a form of artificial vision. Blind participants who perceived phosphenes as a result of the bioelectric stimulation were ideal candidates for the implantation of the bionic eye. He was subsequently awarded The University of Sydney Postgraduate Scholarship in Vision and Eye Health Research, where he completed his PhD in medical education through the development of a Virtual Ophthalmology Clinic (VOC) on which medical students can sharpen their clinical reasoning skills by formulating a diagnosis and treatment plan on virtual patients with simulated eye conditions. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) was designed to evaluate its educational effectiveness versus traditional instruction, and he was honored to receive the Best Oral Presentation in Educational Research at the Annual Nepean Scientific Day for this research, as well as receiving the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australia (HERDSA) Conference Grant.
Two of his first-authored research articles have been ranked among the top 100 most-cited publications in the field, Ophthalmic Education: The Top 100 Cited Articles in Ophthalmology Journals. At Sydney Medical School, Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. Succar served as a Clinical Associate Lecturer and was later promoted to Clinical Senior Lecturer.
Driven by his passion to help people with incurable blindness, he travelled to the United States to pursue his clinical research endeavors with the development of a virtual vision rehabilitation program for restoring functional 3-D vision for people living with central vision loss. This invention led to his first patent (US10857060B2) awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) based on the results of a randomized controlled trial. His postdoctoral fellowship at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, involved integrating optical coherence tomography angiography, retinal oximetry and microperimetry to investigate structure-function correlations of retinal diseases, the leading causes of blindness and vision impairment, as well as pre-screening potential age-related macular degeneration participants for a novel stem cell therapy clinical trial. He was then recruited by Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School, as a Clinical Research Project Manager, involved in conducting multicenter national and international, industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated greater than minimal risk clinical trials, and a mentor in the Harvard Ophthalmology URM Mentorship Program. He recently served as Principal Instructor in the Master of Science in Regulatory Affairs program at Northeastern University, where he received the 2024 CPS Excellence in Teaching Award Nomination. He has disseminated his research widely at national and international medical conferences, peer-reviewed scientific journals and chapters in academic textbooks, including: (1) Digital Teaching, Learning and Assessment: The Way Forward, (2) What Scholars and Teachers Want You to Know About Why and How to Apply the Science of Learning in Your Academic Setting, and (3) Strategies for Fostering Inclusive Classrooms in Higher Education: International Perspectives on Equity and Inclusion. Dr. Succar was a recent recipient of the Best of Journal of Academic Ophthalmology (JAO), awarded to the best 3 research articles published each year, and was invited to receive this award and present this research at the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO) Conference in San Diego, 2023.