2006 Award Recipients
Tomas Aleman, MD
Dr. Aleman is a Research Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is a retinal specialist and a retinal degeneration clinical expert at the Scheie Eye Institute and is actively involved in pre-clinical experimental efforts that seek inherited retinal degeneration disease mechanisms.
Sanjoy K. Bhattacharya, PhD
Dr. Bhattacharya is a young neuroscientist who recently joined the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute from the Cleveland Clinic and who furthers his research interests in degenerative diseases of the eye by applying a multidisciplinary approach to his work with particular focus on the use of proteomics to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Janet C. Blanks, PhD
Dr. Blanks is a senior neuroscientist who recently moved to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton; whose career has been dedicated to the study of retinal degenerative disease; and who has recently begun to focus on developing novel therapeutics that make use of gene therapy tools.
Sander R. Dubovy, MD
Dr. Dubovy is a young retina specialist and an ophthalmic pathologist who also serves as medical director of the Lion’s Eye Bank at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute; whose research interest is to establish clinico-pathologic correlation in eye diseases; and whose long-term interest is in inherited eye diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa.
Dana Garcia, PhD
Professor, Department of Biology, Texas State University. Dr. Garcia’s research is directed toward understanding mechanisms by which the retina communicates with the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Findings from Dr. Garcia’s research will offer new directions for developing therapeutics that could enhance survival of rod photoreceptors in retinal degenerative disease.
Neena B. Haider, PhD
Dr. Haider is an assistant professor of genetics and biochemistry at the University of Nebraska. She works on the regulatory gene Nr2e3 that controls cone development and which when mutated causes a cone rod dystrophy.
Byron Lam, MD, PhD
Dr. Lam is a neuro-ophthalmologist who serves as Professor of Ophthalmology. His research interests cover the areas of visual electrophysiology, visual function tests, clinical neuro-ophthalmology, hereditary retinal disease, and population-based visual impairment. He is known in the eye and vision research community for his contributions to the field of clinical neuro-ophthalmology and electrophysiology. Dr. Lam currently serves as head of the Florida Inherited Eye Disease Project, the cross-state component of the nation-wide genetic testing network led by Howard Hughes investigator Dr. Edwin Stone.
Yun-Zheng Le, PhD
Dr. Le is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center. He works in the area of targeted cell specific knockouts and has recently made a number of lines of mice that can be used for targeted knockouts of retinal pigment epithelial cell specific genes.
Wen-Hsiang Lee, MD, PhD
Dr. Lee is a young retina specialist and molecular biologist who recently joined Bascom Palmer from Johns Hopkins University to develop an integrated clinical/laboratory research program in inherited retinal degeneration.
Zhuo-Hua Pan, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Wayne State University School of Medicine. Dr. Pan is looking for new strategies to treat blinding retinal degenerations. In his lab, he has converted inner retinal neurons into light sensors that could restore light sensitivity to retinas lacking photoreceptors. Importantly, the neurons generated light signals that were transmitted to visual cortex. Dr. Pan’s approach to treating retinal degenerative disease has the advantage of not introducing foreign tissue or devices thus avoiding immune reactions or biocompatibility issues.
Neal S. Peachey, PhD
Dr. Peachey is a research scientist at the Cole Eye Institute of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Research Service of the Cleveland VA Medical Center. Dr. Peachey has identified two different mouse models of the human condition, congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB1 and CSNB2). These mice carry mutations in the same genes that are involved in the respective human conditions. Dr. Peachey’s continuing studies will help define the roles of these affected proteins in retinal function, thus suggesting new avenues for treatment.
Vladen Z. Slepak, PhD
Dr. Slepak is a neuroscientist based in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at University of Miami who is investigating basic molecular mechanisms of signal transduction in order to understand how molecules involved in photo-transduction relocate within rod photoreceptors in response to light with the goal of providing new direction for developing therapeutics to bolster adaptation and rod survival in retinal degenerative disease.
Tonia Rex, PhD
Dr. Rex is a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Jean Bennett’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work is on retinal degeneration, retinal toxicity (protein-induced and light-induced), and gene therapy treatments for retinal disease. Her publication record is very strong and she is poised to make major contributions to this field.
Nancy K. Wills, PhD
Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch. Dr. Wills is an internationally recognized physiologist who has made seminal contributions in the field of epithelial ion channels. Dr. Wills uses a multidisciplinary approach that includes electrophysiology, molecular cloning and optical imaging. Her present research focuses on two proteins (1) ClC-3-type chloride channels in RPE, and (2) IMPDH, an enzyme that catalyzes the first unique step in GMP.
Mutations in IMPDH and loss of ClC-3 channels both lead to photoreceptor degeneration. Better understanding of the regulators of ClC-3 channels and IMPDH could reveal new drug therapies for retinal degenerative disease.