Research to Prevent Blindness

RPB Funding Helps Researchers Revive Light-Sensing Cells in Organ Donor Eyes

Researchers have long been constrained by the models (including animal models) that they are able to use for research into human diseases; sometimes, research in these models does not translate well to human therapies. But today, researchers from the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah, including Frans Vinberg, PhD, a recipient of an RPB / Dr. H. James and Carole Free Career Development Award, and collaborators from Scripps Research, have published research in Nature showing that they have revived light-sensing neuron cells in organ donor eyes, opening up new research avenues using human donor eyes.

Frans Vinberg, PhD, and Fatima Abbas, PhD, of the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah in the Vinberg lab. Photo Credit: John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah.

According to a University of Utah press release, the researchers have restored communication between these cells as part of a series of discoveries that stand to transform both brain and vision research.

RPB is proud to have supported this groundbreaking work with Dr. Vinberg’s RPB / Dr. H. James and Carole Free Career Development Award and an Unrestricted Grant to the University of Utah Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.

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May 11, 2022

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