Lenfests Provide Generous Grant to the Foundation

Owings Mills, MD - March 24, 2010 - H.F. (Gerry) and Marguerite Lenfest are providing a $5 million grant to support the Foundation’s Alan Laties Career Development Program and several translational research projects over the next five years. A media entrepreneur and philanthropist, Gerry formed Lenfest Communications in 1974 and sold the business to Comcast in 2000. We are deeply grateful to Gerry and Marguerite for their outstanding generosity.

"The Lenfest gift is enabling the Foundation to proactively attract young clinicians into retinal research to lead future clinical studies,” says Stephen Rose, Ph.D. chief research officer, Foundation Fighting Blindness. “There are strong financial incentives for young doctors  to move into traditional private practices, so we need to be aggressive in  attracting them to retinal research."

The Alan Laties Career Development Program will provide financial support to young clinician-scientists who are interested in careers in retinal research.  The program is named after Alan Laties, M.D., who was one of the original members of the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board and served as the Board’s chairman for more than three decades. He is currently the Harold G. Scheie-Nina C. Mackall Research Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania, a vice chair on the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board, and the recipient of several awards for achievements in research.