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**LINK TO DOWNLOADABLE HIGH-RES PHOTOS AND CAPTIONS, PHOTO CREDIT: Craig Huey**
Columbia, MD (July 19, 2012) – The Foundation Fighting Blindness, a national non-profit organization dedicated to vision-saving research, presented three prestigious awards to doctors and scientists who have made significafnt contributions to the advancement of preventions, treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases. The honors were announced in front of more than 500 people at the Foundation’s VISIONS 2012 national conference in June at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis.
The Foundation’s pinnacle recognition for lifetime scientific achievement—the Llura Liggett Gund Award—was bestowed for just the seventh time in 41 years to Edwin Stone, M.D., Ph.D., the Seamans-Hauser Chair of Molecular Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa. As one of the world’s top genetic researchers, Dr. Stone’s lab has been a leader in discovering and characterizing genes that cause retinal degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa, Leber congenital amaurosis, and Stargardt disease, among other conditions. He and his colleagues are taking the new genetic information, creating models of disease, and then working to develop potential treatments for evaluation in clinical trials. This effort includes successfully converting a patient’s skin cells to stem cells, and then to retinal precursor cells to evaluate possible therapies.
“Dr. Stone is among the ‘best of the best’ in his field, leading truly cutting-edge science that wasn’t possible just two or three years ago,” said Stephen Rose, Ph.D., Chief Research Officer, Foundation Fighting Blindness. “In addition to his pioneering work in gene discovery, Dr. Stone’s nonprofit genetic testing lab has made it affordable and accessible for people affected with retinal diseases to determine what genetic mutation is causing their disease.”
To underscore the Llura Liggett Gund Award’s importance, an anonymous donor commissioned Stueben Glass to create a unique work of art that embodies its essence. The sculpture captures elements of the eye and the retina, with a thick curved bottom suggesting that darkness is falling away, returning light and vision.
The Foundation’s Board of Directors Award, which recognizes an investigator’s outstanding progress in research that is advancing sight-saving treatments and cures, was presented to John Flannery, Ph.D., of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. His groundbreaking work has helped demonstrate that gene therapy is a viable and effective approach to treating blindness, and the 11 clinical trials now underway are a testament to what he proved in the lab. Dr. Flannery is also involved in advancing a promising new field of gene therapy research called optogenetics, which has the potential to help people with advanced vision loss, as well as save or possibly restore sight regardless of the gene that is defective.
The Foundation’s Builders of Sight Clinical Research Award is a new honor that was presented for the first time this year to Morton F. Goldberg, M.D., recognizing his extraordinary efforts that are making strides to the clinic possible. He is the Joseph E. Green Professor of Ophthalmology and Director Emeritus of the Wilmer Eye Institute at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the recipient of several distinguished honors, and author of more than 500 articles and editorials in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Goldberg has greatly contributed to the growth of the Wilmer Eye Institute’s clinical research program, and has nurtured the best sight-saving science as a member of the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board since the early 1970s, and as chairman of the newly named Foundation Fighting Blindness Clinical Research Institute.
About Foundation Fighting Blindness
The Foundation Fighting Blindness is a national non-profit organization driving research that will lead to preventions, treatments and cures for retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration, Usher syndrome and the entire spectrum of retinal degenerative diseases that affect more than 10 million Americans. Since 1971, the Foundation has raised over $450 million as the leading non-governmental funder of retinal research. Breakthrough Foundation-funded studies using gene therapy have restored significant vision in children and young adults who were previously blind, paving the way for using this method to treat a variety of retinal degenerative diseases, and proving a cure is in sight. With a network of nearly 50 chapters, the Foundation also provides support, education and resources to affected individuals and their families in communities across the country.
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