The 2026 Career-Starter Research Grant of $100,000 from the Knights Templar Eye Foundation has been awarded to Nataliia Klementeva, PhD, Senior Research Associate in the Arshavsky Laboratory at the Duke Eye Center. The grant will support her research project, “Elucidating the Pathophysiological Mechanism of Photoreceptor Degeneration in Bardet-Biedl Syndrome.”
Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) is a genetic disorder that causes progressive vision loss, often beginning in childhood and potentially leading to legal blindness. The vision loss occurs primarily because photoreceptors, the light-sensing cells in the retina that are essential for vision, do not function properly and eventually degenerate. Understanding what causes photoreceptors to become damaged and die in BBS is especially important because there are currently no approved treatments to prevent or slow the associated vision loss.
Dr. Klementeva’s research aims to uncover the biological processes that cause photoreceptor damage in BBS. By better understanding these processes, the study could identify new targets for treatment and ways to protect photoreceptors from damage. In the long term, the findings could help lay the groundwork for new treatments designed to preserve vision in people living with BBS.