Research News
Research to Prevent Blindness awards David R. Pepperberg Senior Scientific Investigator Award
David R. Pepperberg, Searls-Schenk Professor of Ophthalmology and director of the Photoreceptor Research Laboratory in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences , has received a Senior Scientific Investigator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc., (RPB) the world's leading voluntary organization supporting eye research.
RPB makes Senior Scientific Investigator Awards to recognize the nation's leading vision scientists and provide support for groundbreaking research. Dr. Pepperberg's award began January 1, 2004 . He plans to use the award to support studies within his Nanoscale Neuromodulating Platforms project. This interdisciplinary, multi-investigator research program seeks to develop light-responsive molecular structures that can be introduced into diseased retinal tissue and circumvent the vision impairment caused by the loss of functional rod and cone photoreceptors.
“This award from RPB comes at a critical time in our research within the nanoscale platforms project,” said Dr. Pepperberg. “Not only will it help to support pilot studies that will advance our progress toward the project's enormously challenging overall goal, this award will strengthen our ability to obtain continued federal grant support for the project. I am deeply grateful to RPB for their support of this work.”
Dr. Pepperberg's research advances knowledge that will help determine the mechanisms of, and ultimately treatments for, retinal degenerative diseases. The most common forms of retinal degenerative diseases are retinitis pigmentosa, recognized as one of the most common inherited causes of blindness in people between the ages of 20 and 60; and macular degeneration, the major cause of legal blindness in individuals over the age of 65. His research program is also supported by grants from the National Eye Institute and the University of Illinois Intercampus Research Initiative in Biotechnology.
Dr. Pepperberg joined UIC in 1983 and has affiliate appointments in the Departments of Bioengineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, and Physiology and Biophysics. He was named the Searls-Schenk Professor of Ophthalmology in 2002.
Dr. Jose Pulido, chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, thanked RPB for its continuing support, in the form of an Unrestricted Grant supporting the department's overall research program; another Career Development Award to Dr. Haohua Qian in 2001; a Senior Scientific Investigator Award to Dr . David Pepperberg , also in 2004, and four other SSI Awards, to Dr. Harris Ripps (2003 and 1991); to Dr. Kenneth Alexander (2002) and to Dr. Beatrice Yue (1996).
“We are truly grateful for RPB's support of our department and our researchers,” he said. “We are proud to be partners in their mission to preserve vision and restore sight.”
