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SUNY Upstate’s Department of Ophthalmology receives grant, award

Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) has awarded two grants to the Department of Ophthalmology at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

An unrestricted grant of $110,000 was awarded to the department to support research into the causes, treatment and prevention of blinding diseases. The work will be directed by John A. Hoepner, M.D., chair of the ophthalmology department.

The department also received an RPB Career Development Award on behalf of Shobana S. Mani, Ph.D., in the amount of $200,000 over a four-year period. The award is designed to attract and support promising young scientists.

Work at the Department of Ophthalmology’s Center for Vision Research falls into four major areas, including ocular tissue diseases, gene therapy and inherited retinal diseases, cell and molecular biology of the retina, and visual processing in the retina and brain. Scientists collaborate with each other and with colleagues around the world as they work at the molecular, cellular, systems and perceptual levels to understand the origin of diseases that lead to severe vision loss and blindness.

RPB is the world’s leading voluntary organization supporting eye research. To date, the organization has awarded grants totaling $675,000 to the SUNY Upstate. Since it was founded in 1960, RPB has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to medical institutions throughout the country for research into blinding diseases.