Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) has awarded an Unrestricted Grant of $110,000 to the Department of Ophthalmology at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.
Zahra Motahari, a PhD Student in the lab of Dr. Michael Zuber won the Members-in-Training Outstanding Poster Award at the 2014 ARVO meeting in Orlando, FL.
Reyna I. Martinez-De Luna, PhD, working in the lab of Michael E. Zuber, PhD, has been awarded a Grass Foundation Fellowship.
William J. Brunken, PhD, Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Director of the Center for Vision Research, has been named to serve on the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology's Research Director's Council.
At the Center for Vision Research, one focus of our work is to learn all we can about the genes required for normal eye formation and how these genes change to cause birth defects that affect sight.
Dr. Francesca Pignoni and Dr. Michael Zuber have spent much of their careers looking at early eye formation through genetic studies in two different model systems, the fly (Drosophila melanogaster) and the frog (Xenopus laevis).
It is amazing how the genetic material in such very different species can be so alike. In fact, many of the same genes that control normal eye formation in fly or frog are also required for the development of the human eye. Because of similarities discovered by the research teams of Dr. Pignoni and Dr. Zuber, groundbreaking information relevant to the prevention and treatment of congenital eye disease is rapidly being developed.
Today, the laboratories of Dr. Pignoni and Dr. Zuber study genes that are altered in patients whose eye are malformed (aniridia, Peters anomaly, coloboma, congenital cataracts), smaller (microphthalmia) or even absent (anophthalmia). By studying the genetic mechanisms at work during eye formation, researchers in these CVR Labs are gaining vital knowledge about how to treat blinding diseases and eye injury later in life, and they are beginning to understand how life-altering visual defects may one day be prevented. With continued education and research, answers may be just around the corner.
Why Research is Important?
Research on the genetic causes of birth defects in the visual system provides information that is essential to understanding how mutant genes cause these abnormalities and diseases. This important work is contributing critical knowledge, necessary to develop gene therapies that have the potential to treat or even prevent eye diseases in the future.
Research into the genetic causes of visual birth defects is producing valuable information about how to isolate genes responsible for specific mutations.This important work is developing techniques for gene therapy that have potential to prevent or treat congenital blindness and other progressive eye diseases in the future.
May affect cornea, retina, orbit or other parts of the eye
Damage is often permanent and untreatable
Imagine having your driver’s license revoked because letters of the eye chart appear distorted, even though you’re wearing prescription eyeglasses.Imagine learning there is no treatment to stop the loss of vision you are experiencing due to a common but virtually untreatable disease.
These scenarios describe reality for people diagnosed with age related macular degeneration (AMD), a progressive eye disease that causes central vision loss primarily in those over age 60.
What are Birth Defects of the Eye?
Learning your child has a birth defect is devastating news.moreLearning your child has a birth defect is devastating news.Visual defects in infants and children can be serious, and often change the course of a child’s life.Partial or total blindness from defects in the cornea, retina, orbit or other parts of the eye is generally obvious and permanent.Other visual birth defects are harder to detect but may be just as severe.While genetic changes are most often associated with infantile blindness, birth defects related to eyesight may affect a person at any age.
Distortion and blurred vision when cells in the macula, the central part of the retina responsible for reading and color vision, become damaged.
Rarely causes total blindness; however, treatment options to prevent its progression are limited.
Contact Carol Miller with questions about the content of this page.
