Ioannis Pallikaris

Ioannis G. Pallikaris (Greek: Παλλήκαρης Ιωάννης; born November 18, 1947) is a Greek ophthalmologist who in 1989 performed the first LASIK procedure on a human eye.[1] Pallikaris also developed Epi-LASIK.[2]

Professor Palikaris was the rector of the University of Crete between 2003 and 2011. He is also the founder and director of the Institute of Vision and Optics [3] in the same university.

Professor Pallikaris serves as the Medical Advisory Board Chair for Presbia,[4] an ophthalmic device company, where he is responsible for overseeing the post-market surveillance trials of the Flexivue Microlens, a corneal inlay treatment for presbyopia, the age-related loss of near vision. He also conducts training sessions for surgeons at the Vardinoyannion Eye Institute. The Flexivue Microlens is a 3-mm in diameter lens that is inserted into a corneal pocket created by a femtosecond laser in the non-dominant eye of a presbyopic patient.[5] The lens preserves the patient's distance vision, while providing equivalent near vision correction,[6] allowing the patient to focus on near objects without the aid of reading glasses.[7]