Jason McAnany receives the RPB Dolly Green Special Scholar Award

J. Jason McAnany, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, has received the RPB Dolly Green Special Scholar Award in the amount of $25,000 from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) to support research into the causes, treatment, and prevention of blinding diseases. The award, part of RPB’s Special Scholar Program, is designed to support outstanding young scientists who are conducting research of unusual significance and promise.

Support from the RPB Special Scholar Award will significantly accelerate Dr. McAnany’s research program, which is working to establish the relationship between visual dysfunction in patients with blinding retinal diseases and the underlying degenerative mechanisms. Support from RPB will permit the development and application of a novel “multi-modal functional assay” for complete characterization of early neural changes in patients with diabetic retinopathy, the most serious ocular complication of diabetes mellitus. This research is highly significant because the new approaches that will be developed will be capable of classifying patients who have not yet developed clinically-apparent retinopathy, a group that cannot be staged or subtyped according to standard scales. These studies will be essential for identifying appropriate candidates for clinical trials and for assessing the outcomes of therapeutic interventions.

RPB is the world’s leading voluntary organization supporting eye research. Since it was founded in 1960, RPB has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to medical institutions throughout the United State for research into all blinding eye diseases.

For information on RPB, RPB-funded research, eye disorders and the RPB Grants Program, go to ww.rpbusa.org.