Machelle Pardue (seen here,
forefront), whose research focus
is diabetic retinopathy, has a
dual appointment at the Emory
Eye Center and the Atlanta VA
Medical Center. She collaborates
with a number of Emory
ophthalmology colleagues.
With Iuvone and doctoral
student Moe Aung, Pardue
has studied use of dopamine
to improve vision in animal
models of diabetes. “This could
lead to a new treatment,”
she says. The results suggest
that dopamine-restoring
drugs—commonly used to
treat Parkinson’s disease—may
also be beneficial for diabetic
retinopathy, a leading cause of
blindness in adults. The results
were published recently in
Journal of Neuroscience.
The research process in search of new or better tools for
diagnosis and therapy is often, by nature, meandering
and unpredictable. An idea may originate in informal
conversation, attract interest from other colleagues,
and engender additional trails of inquiry, which in turn
may yield more questions than answers. Some research
findings, including extremely important ones, are simply
serendipitous, providing answers to questions that
weren’t even being asked by those involved.
Research takes time, creativity, patience, imagination,
fortitude, confidence, determination and money. It also
takes discipline to maintain a steady course as well as
flexibility and open-mindedness to know when to change
course in the face of new need or opportunity.
At their annual retreat this past fall, Emory Eye Center
faculty assessed the direction of their research, with the
goal of articulating formal guidelines that could help steer
their research priorities for both the short and long term.
“We affirmed, first, that our research must center on
translational initiatives, those that offer a direct benefit
to patients,” says Timothy Olsen, director of the center.
“Then we sought ways to determine the relative priority
of current and future research efforts.”
The group wanted to make the most of our existing
resources, says Olsen, so they asked three questions:
1. Where is our greatest expertise?
2. Where is our current and future funding
being directed?
3. And what eye-related illnesses create
the greatest disease burden worldwide?
The group then assessed research topics to see which
rose to the top.
“A top-priority project, for example,” says Olsen,
“would be one with strong departmental expertise and
strong external funding that addressed a vision problem
causing blindness both locally and throughout the
world.” Examples include diabetic retinopathy, agerelated macular degeneration, neuroretinal degeneration
and cataracts.
A somewhat less common disease, however, could
also qualify as a research priority. Olsen cites eye
cancer as an example. The center has extraordinary
expertise in this area, led by pathologist/oncologist Hans
Grossniklaus, whose work is complemented by that
of the ocular oncology team: retinal specialists Chris
Bergstrom and Baker Hubbard and comprehensive
2015 | Emory Eye 5