Six Ophthalmology Faculty and Trainees Receive Research to Prevent Blindness Awards

Jia Yin, MD, PhD, MPH, Receives RPB Physician-Scientist Award

Jia Yin, MD, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, received this award, which provides $300,000 in grant funding to promote the clinical and basic science research of clinicians. The award will support Dr. Yin’s research on the relationship between blood vessels and sensory nerves in the cornea. Specifically, she will test the hypothesis that sensory nerve-derived neuro-peptide alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone is a key regulator of corneal angiogenesis and a potential therapeutic modality in treating neovascularization.

Dr. Ayellet Segrè, PhD, Receives RPB/Glaucoma Foundation Career Advancement Award

Ayellet Segrè, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, has been recognized with the Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB)/Glaucoma Foundation Career Advancement Award. Hundreds of common DNA variants have been found to be associated with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG).  

The majority of these variants lie in noncoding regions and likely affect glaucoma through dysregulation of gene expression in specific ocular cell types. Dr. Segrè, a statistical geneticist, will use a combination of single cell genomics, transcriptomics, and epigenomics to identify genetic regulatory effects in the aqueous humor outflow pathways, retina, and optic nerve head at cellular resolution. These results will be integrated with genetic associations with POAG to identify novel disease-causing genes and pathogenic cell types, and propose new neuroprotective drug targets for glaucoma. 

Ryoji Amamoto, PhD, Receives RPB Career Development Award

This award will help to support Ryoji Amamoto, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, and his research on retinitis pigmentosa. Dr. Amamoto and his team recently discovered that activating the retinoic acid signaling pathway can help photoreceptors survive long-term. They will now work to identify the mechanism by which this pathway promotes photoreceptor survival, with the hope of finding other, more specific molecules that could prevent degeneration and preserve healthy vision in patients.

Isdin Oke, MD, Receives RPB Career Development Award

Isdin Oke, MD, an Instructor in Ophthamology at Harvard Medical School, has been awarded the Research to Prevent Blindness 2023 Tom Wertheimer Career Development Award in Data Science, which funds vision research that uses artificial intelligence and/or data science to gain new knowledge related to sight-threatening conditions. Isdin will work to identify modifiable factors that decrease diagnostic delay of amblyopia in children from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups, and develop prediction models to identify children at risk of diagnostic delay due to missed screening and failed specialty care referral. He will use data from the Intelligent Research in Sight (IRIS) Registry–the largest comprehensive eye disease registry–to achieve his research goals.

Lyvia J. Zhang Receives AOCOO-HNF Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship

Lyvia Zhang, a medical student at the University of New England, is the recipient of the Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) and American Osteopathic Colleges of Ophthalmology & Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AOCOO-HNS) Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship. This fellowship allows gifted students to take a year off from an osteopathic medical school and devote time to the pursuit of a research project within an RPB-supported department of ophthalmology. 

Zhang will complete a one-year research fellowship focused on the Boston keratoprosthesis (KPro) artificial cornea device under the mentorship of faculty member Thomas Dohlman, MD. She will study the retention rate and complications associated with the device, and develop a model to optimize post-operative management. 

Madhura Shah Receives Janssen Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship

Madhura Shah, a student at Boston University School of Medicine, is the recipient of the Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship. This fellowship allows gifted students to take a year off from medical school and devote time to the pursuit of a research project within an RPB-supported department of ophthalmology. 

Shah previously spent a year in the laboratory of Bruce Ksander, PhD, analyzing outcomes in a non-human primate model of induced optic neuropathy treated with a novel “epigenetic reprogramming” gene therapy to restore visual function. She will continue to build on that research with her RPB grant, under the mentorship of both Dr. Ksander and Joe Rizzo, MD. Applying the expertise of the Ksander laboratory, Shah aims to epigenetically reprogram induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) obtained from Dr. Rizzo’s optic neuropathy patient population. This personalized research promises to determine if the results using cells derived from individual patients could be used to assess the potential response to therapy. It applies state-of-the-art technology and will provide important data for a future human clinical trial.