Thomas W. Gardner is Professor of Ophthalmology and Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Gardner's research interests include vitreoretinal diseases and surgery, and clinical and experimental diabetic retinopathy. He is the principal investigator for several grants, including studies of VEGF-induced retinal vascular permeability in diabetes, retinal insulin signaling in diabetes and retinal dysfunction in insulin resistance.

Dr. Gardner has authored or coauthored numerous journal articles, abstracts, and book chapters, and he has lectured widely at professional meetings. He has received the Heed Foundation Fellowship, a Physician-Scientist Award from the National Eye Institute, an Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and the Mary Jane Kugle Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He is director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Diabetic Retinopathy Center at Penn State University. He was also listed in Best Doctors in America in 1998.

Dr. Gardner is a Fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and is a member of many other professional organizations, including the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the American Diabetes Association, the Vitreous Society, the Retina Society, and the American Ophthalmological Society. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Current Eye Research and is on the editorial board of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, and he is a manuscript reviewer for numerous peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Gardner received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he received the Upjohn Achievement Award for Outstanding Clinical Proficiency. He completed his internship at Grady Memorial Hospital, Emory University Medical School, in Atlanta, Georgia, and a residency in ophthalmology at Northwestern University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. He also held a Fellowship in vitreoretinal diseases and surgery at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine in Florida. Dr. Gardner received a master's degree in physiology from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 1998.