Partners in vision
Harvard researcher looks for new
treatments with help from
Eversight grant
Every advancement in eye care begins with research.
That is why Eversight invests in the exploration and
development of new treatments and cures by funding
promising research initiatives.
In June, Eversight awarded Ula V. Jurkunas, M.D., and
Shivakumar Vasanth, Ph.D., an Eye And Vision Research
Grant to fund their study examining the role of aberrant
DNA damage response in Fuchs’ endothelial corneal
dystrophy and its effect on the trinucleotide repeat
expansion in the TCF4 gene.
Cady and Eversight Director of Research Programs
Gregory Grossman visited the two Harvard researchers to
present a grant certificate and had the opportunity
to see Dr. Jurkunas’ work up close.
“Some travel across the U.S. just to
ask about the latest research. And
sometimes you can actually say,
‘Yesterday in the lab, we found
this new bit of data.’”
Dr. Jurkunas is co-director
of Harvard Medical
School Department of
Ophthalmology and a
specialist in corneal and
refractive surgery at
Massachusetts Eye and
Ear, and Dr. Vasanth is a
Research Associate in the
Department of Ophthalmology at
Harvard Medical School.
“Funding research like Dr. Jurkunas is such an
important part of our mission,” said Eversight
Connecticut Executive Director Ryan Cady. “We
want to do more than restore sight through corneal
transplantation, we want to prevent blindness from ever
happening and investing in research is the best way to
achieve that.”
The Eversight Eye and Vision Grant Program partners
with the world’s leading institutions to stimulate new
and pioneering discoveries to cure blindness, investing
more than $3 million since 1980. Eversight also provides
nearly 3,000 donor eye tissues to researchers, helping to
accelerate their investigations.
“These individuals hold the
key to the future of sight
restoration,” says Cady. “It is
important that we recognize
their impact and continue to
support their critical work.”
Dr. Jurkunas has an
extensive background
treating patients with Fuchs’ dystrophy and seeking
cures for corneal disorders with stem cell therapies.
“I have so many patients who have searched the Internet,
trying to find the right treatment for their disease,”
Dr. Jurkunas said. “Some travel across the U.S. just to
ask about the latest research. And sometimes you can
actually say, ‘Yesterday in the lab, we saw this correlation,’
or ‘we found this new bit of data. And I think it’s going to
help you, maybe not now, but in the future.’”
Learn more about the Eversight
research program and our other
Eye and Vision Grant recipients
at eversightvision.org/research.
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