James “Tony” Stefater, MD, PhD, a vitreoretinal fellow at Mass. Eye and Ear, received the 2017 Vitreoretinal Research Scholarship from the Robert Machemer Foundation in the amount of $20,000 over one year. His winning project, “Development of a novel post-operative intraocular retinal tamponade agent,” focuses on developing a better post-operative retinal tamponade agent that will improve clinical outcomes and eliminate the post-operative burden placed on patients. This work will be performed under the mentorship of Dean Eliott, MD.
The Vitreoretinal Research Scholarship is awarded annually to support a promising research project by a trainee. The selected project promises to improve knowledge of the causes and treatments of vitreoretinal diseases.
Dr. Stefater completed his ophthalmology residency at Harvard Ophthalmology in 2017. His work has resulted in several publications and two patent applications. Additionally, Dr. Stefater and Tomasz Stryjewski, MD, co-founded Pykus Therapeutics, Inc., which is developing a dissolvable intraocular device to make retinal surgery more comfortable for patients.
Dr. Robert Machemer is known as the “father of modern vitreoretinal sugery,” and taught, “Progress comes from doing the unconventional.” The Robert Machemer Foundation is a not-for-profit organization created to honor him through support of research and training to advance techniques and cures to treat diseases in the vitreoretinal surgical field.