The NIH K12 EY016335 Grant, which funds the Harvard Vision Clinical Scientist Development Program, led by Reza Dana, MD, MSc, MPH, has been renewed for funding by the NIH for an additional four years. The program awards career development grants that provide exceptional junior clinician scientists with financial support, mentorship, and 75 percent protected research time to pursue and build independent research careers. The program currently supports three junior faculty, including Jason Comander, MD, PhD, and Brian Song, MD (Mass. Eye and Ear); and Mary Whitman, MD, PhD (Boston Children's Hospital). The program, which was launched at Mass. Eye and Ear by Reza in 2004, has graduated six additional faculty who have gone on to develop successful programs in cornea, genetics, retina, and low vision research.
Eli Peli, OD, MSc, received a grant of nearly $3,000,000 from the Department of Defense/Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs for his project, "Active Confocal Imaging System for Visual Prostheses." Jae-Hyun Jung, PhD, is a co-investigator on this grant which utilizes the light field technology that he investigated in his PhD.
Joseph Rizzo III, MD, received two grants, both in support of his retinal prosthesis research. A $1,548,602 grant from the NIH will support the development of a retinal prosthesis with penetrating electrodes, which offers the opportunity to provide safer stimulation and more effective vision to patients. He also received a grant from the Department of Defense in the amount of $309,999 to support his work with John Pezaris, PhD of the Neuro-surgery Department at Massachusetts General Hospital. The researchers are modifying a retinal prosthesis to create a novel prosthetic that would be implanted at the level of the lateral geniculate nucleus, which has the potential to help a much broader group of visually-impaired patients.
David A. Sullivan, PhD, and Louis Pasquale, MD, received a grant in the amount of $40,000 from the Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF) and its Shaffer Grant Advisory Committee (SAC), for their project entitled, "Estrogen & Glaucoma."