VISUAL SCIENCES RESEARCH CENTER

VISUAL SCIENCES RESEARCH CENTER

Highlights from the Tenth Annual VSRC Symposium

and

Resident Research Day

Dr. Paul Sieving, Director of the National Eye Institute

CELEBRATING a DECADE of VISION RESEARCH!
Case Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and the Visual Sciences Research Center commemorated ten years of excellence in vision research since the founding of the VSRC!

We look forward to your participation in the future of vision research! 

Contact Janis Kaghazwala at jjk9@case.edu or 216-368-4752.

~Events of the Day~

8:00am      Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:45am      Welcome & Opening Remarks    Dean Pamela Davis, Dr. Nathan Levitan Introduction of Dr. Sieving~ Dr. Jonathan Lass

9:00-9:30  Dr. Paul Sieving~ NEI Update

9:45   Paul Park “Pulling on the light receptor rhodopsin one molecule at a time”
10:00  Tadeo Maeda  “Retinal degeneration and retinoid cycle”
10:15  Akiko Maeda  “Anomalous reactions of the visual cycle initiate retinal changes found in macular degeneration"

Break 10:30-11:00
VSRC Aging & Diabetes Presentations~
Moderator : Ram Nagaraj
11:00  Ram Nagaraj "Small heat shock proteins in the eye: Role in apoptosis and protein denaturation"
11:15  Vincent Monnier "Crystallin ascorbylation as an endpoint for an anti-cataract trial"
11:30  Carlos Subauste “CD 40 mediates retinal inflammation and neuro-vascular degeneration”

12:00  Feng Lin “Role of Decay Accelerating Factor in experimental autoimmune uveitis”
12:15  Eric Carlson “Corneal Inflammation: Looking through the shower door”

12:30  Lunch & Poster Session

2:00    Dr. Paul Sieving~Ophthalmic Genetics: Looking Toward Treatments

Visual Sciences Training Program Grant update~
Moderator:Susann Brady-Kalnay
2:45    Samantha Oblander "Signaling pathways in E-cadherin-dependent retinal ganglion cell neurite outgrowth, a role for the receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase-mu (PTPµ)"
3:00    David Lodowski "Structural Studies in Rhodopsin Activation"
3:15    Laura Kopplin “Genetic risk factors for Age-related Macular Degeneration.”

VSRC Clinical Research Presentations~ Moderator: Stefan Trocme
3:30    Jonathan Lass  "CDS and SMAS: Implications on the Eye Banking and Corneal Transplant Surgeon Community"
3:45    Suber Huang "Emerging research in the management of diabetic retinopathy
4:00    Loretta Szczotka-Flynn Bacterial contamination of contact lenses: Effects on corneal infiltrative events and efficacy of solutions against biofilms

4:15 Dr. Pearlman ~ VSRC Core Facility Update

4:15 Dr. Lass ~ Closing Remarks

4:30 Reception

Visual Sciences Research Center Receives $3.2M Award
CLEVELAND, OH - The Visual Sciences Research Center (VSRC) of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the Research Institute of University Hospitals Case Medical Center has been awarded a $3.2 million renewal over 5 years of their Core Grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI), one of the government's National Institutes of Health. The NEI conducts and supports research to help prevent and treat eye diseases and other disorders of vision.

The grant will sustain ongoing research and studies of major diseases of the eye and visual system in support of the research programs of 16 principal investigators holding 23 active NEI individual research grants and an NEI Institutional Training grant. The current investigators form the nucleus of the Case VSRC, a broader group of 40 vision researchers in 19 different basic- and clinical-science departments at Case Medical Center with over $36 million funding in total in vision research and one of the top 10 visual sciences research centers in the country.

"We are thrilled with the renewal of the Core Grant, key support in our fight to come up with better treatments for blinding eye diseases affecting our aging population like cataract, diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration" said Eric Pearlman, Ph.D., Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the School of Medicine and research director for the Visual Sciences Department.

The NEI Core Grant, initially awarded in 1997, is now in its third cycle of renewal and has generated over 100 publications advancing the field.  Besides exploring eye research affecting the aging population, VSRC investigators are working on  lazy eye and cross eyes, ocular immunology and inflammation causing scarring of the eye tissues, and the retinal degenerations, in particular retinitis pigmentosa. 

The grant will allow support of core facilities in the newly renovated 15,000 square feet laboratories of the Department and VSRC and enable major new functions including hybridoma production, live cell imaging, laser capture microdissection, and a full service proteomics facility to acquire and analyze protein expression in ocular tissues. The grant will also provide opportunities for enhanced collaborations for the promotion and growth of visual research training programs, advanced research technology and pioneering visual science. The VSRC has also received a $500K gift from the Triple T Foundation which is designated in part to improve research and laboratory facilities and to support the build-out and expansion of the Center.

"The Core Grant has been and will continue to catalyze the growth of our current programs at Case and attract new vision research investigators to our community to help us come up with new treatments for eye diseases as well as build our economy in Northeast Ohio" said Jonathan Lass, M.D., Professor and Chair of the Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the School of Medicine, Case Medical Center and Director of the VSRC. 

Mission

This mission of the VSRC is to promote the study of basic and clinical problems of the eye and visual system that may lead to improvements in the prevention and treatment of major blinding disorders in the United States and the world. Through a multidisciplinary and comprehensive research program in vision and ophthalmology involving both basic and clinical departments at Case Western Reserve University, the VSRC seeks to advance the visual sciences at the university and beyond, and promote its efforts to the scientific community and greater community at large.

Goals

The Visual Sciences Research Center (VSRC) was founded at Case Western Reserve University in 1996. The VSRC now comprises a multidisciplinary and comprehensive research program in vision and ophthalmology, with over 30 members in CWRU Departments of Ophthalmology, Anatomy, Biomedical Engineering, Genetics, Medicine, Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Epidemiology/ Biostatistics, Neurology, Neurosciences, Pathology, Pediatrics, Pharmacology, Physiology and Biophysics. VSRC scientists study basic and clinical aspects of the eye, and involve four interdisciplinary research theme groups: Aging and Diabetes, Extraocular muscle biology and ocular motility, Ocular development, and Ocular Immunology.  The VSRC is supported by a National Eye Institute (NEI) funded, P30 Core Grant headed by Dr. Eric Pearlman, and an NEI T32 Training Grant headed by Dr. Susanne Brady-Kalnay. Links to the Training grant and the P-30 Core functions are on the side bar.  

VSRC investigator activity
We are particularly interested in collaborative activity among VSRC investigators, and will shortly have a web page devoted to this. We also request that VSRC investigators update their personal websites, especially with regard to publications, and for those who don’t yet have a link from the VSRC web page www.case.edu/med/vsrc/ , please contact Scott Howell scott.howell@case.edu or Janis Kaghazwala Janis.Kaghazwala@case.edu,to set one up. (Most are on the free site at the Community of Science http://workbench.cos.com/).

This page will be updated at least monthly. Please send any newsworthy items, upcoming vision related seminars etc. to Janis Kaghazwala at Janis.Kaghazwala@case.edu, and any comments or suggestions for the website to eric.pearlman@case.edu.

Thanks for your cooperation….