The RPB Career Development Award was established in 1990 to attract young physicians and basic scientists to eye research. To date, the program has given awards to 219 vision research scientists in departments of ophthalmology at universities across the country.
Gospe’s clinical and research interests center on the role of impaired function of mitochondria in the development of a number of diseases of the optic nerve and retina. The RPB Career Development Award will fund his proposal to build on his prior finding that severe defects in mitochondrial metabolism in mice reduce light signaling by retinal photoreceptor cells via an undefined but reversible mechanism. He plans to identify the cell type(s) responsible for the decreased light signaling and to test the hypothesis that glucose deprivation is the primary driver of the photoreceptor signaling defect. This line of investigation may contribute to the development of new therapeutic strategies to improve vision in retinal diseases associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, such as age-related macular degeneration and certain pigmentary retinopathies.
Since it was founded in 1960, RPB has channeled more than $377 million into eye research. As a result, RPB has been identified with nearly every major breakthrough in vision research in that time. For information on RPB’s grants program, listings of RPB institutional and individual grantees, and findings generated by these awards, go to www.rpbusa.org.