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Silicon Valley Lecture: “Where’s the Cure?”
Tuesday, October 7, 2008 – “Where is the cure?” That was the topic for the second annual Daniel Scott Weston Glaucoma Research Lecture, presented by Glaucoma Research Foundation’s Silicon Valley chapter. Nearly 100 movers and shakers from Silicon Valley and the Bay Area attended the event, hosted by Lydia and John Vidovich in their Los Altos Hills home to hear the featured Weston lecturer, Allen B. Poirson PhD, GRF’s new Director of Scientific Programs and Licensing.
“For some time now,” said Thomas M. Brunner, GRF President and CEO, “our donors and stakeholders have been asking: ‘Where is the cure, and what is being done nationally to address the urgent challenge glaucoma presents?’ Tonight, at last, we can begin to see the answer in a new report currently being finalized by Dr. Poirson. The report is his ‘Glaucoma Research Status Report’, and we are most fortunate tonight to hear previews of key findings in this report which should be out in the next few weeks.”
Silicon Valley Leaders and Luminaries
Mountain View’s former Mayor Art Takahara (GRF board member and founding chair of the Silicon Valley chapter) opened the program by welcoming special guests including: Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss; Nobuko Saito Cleary and Gary Cleary PharmD, PhD (who are co-chairing the Research Overview in GRF’s 31st Anniversary Benefit and Celebration coming January 28, 2009 at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco); Betsy Fouss, Executive Director of the Delta Gamma Foundation in Columbus, Ohio; members of the chapter’s Leadership Council including popular photographer Margaret Abe; GRF board member Fred Brinkmann; Mercury News columnist Patty Fisher; Woodside event producer/designer Andi Mallinckrodt; Gladys and George Weston DDS, who established the Weston Lecture in memory of their son; and Atherton’s Jan Zones.
Takahara also acknowledged several prominent physicians present including Janet Fox PharmD (Director of Pfizer’s local Regional Medical and Research Specialists Center); Kaiser ophthalmologists Dipali Apte MD and Lee Du MD; George Hewes MD and Eva Hewes MD; Kuldev Singh MD, Director of Stanford’s Glaucoma unit and GRF board member; Palo Alto-based Thomas Tayeri MD; and the Weston’s daughter, Jane Weston MD, and her husband Jan Horn MD. In his introduction of GRF board member and co-founder John Hetherington MD, Takahara also introduced Kim Roberts, general manager of the Baccarat Boutique on Union Square, host for the presentation of GRF’s prestigious Vision Award to Dr. Hetherington on November 20.
Brunner noted that the appointment of Dr. Poirson was the result of an exhaustive and nearly year-long search. “Dr. Poirson’s training in visual neuroscience and his impressive experience commercializing scientific and clinical discovery over the past ten years has ideally prepared him for his role here. He is the former Vice President of Medical Systems at Science and Technology International, obtained both his BA and PhD at Stanford University, and has published extensively in the areas of biology and medical imaging.”
Findings from the ‘Glaucoma Research Status Report’
“With a growing threat of blindness from glaucoma looming,” Dr. Poirson says, “finding a cure or therapies that can avert this threat is simply not an urgent national imperative. We looked at several basic indicators,” he told us “and documented the low priority glaucoma research funding has at the National Eye Institute (NEI) and the resulting small amount of new glaucoma research.”
Poirson reported that, at the NEI in 2007, glaucoma research received only 10% of the extramural research budget. “Federal glaucoma research spending ranks fourth at the NEI, behind Retinal Diseases (which received four times the amount glaucoma receives), Sensorimotor Disorders (which received more than twice the amount glaucoma receives), and Corneal Diseases (which received one-third again more than glaucoma).
“Attracting and supporting talented new researchers with fresh ideas to the field of glaucoma is instrumental in finding a cure for the disease,” said Poirson. Citing his examination of the publicly-available database (CRISP) on federally funded medical research he concludes: “That just isn’t happening through the NEI funding mechanism. Over the past two years (FY2008 and FY2007), a total of $4 million distributed among fourteen new research grants (R01, R15, R21) represents the total government commitment to new research programs emphasizing neurodegeneration, neuroprotection, genetic and stem cell approaches to understand and treat the disease.”
For each of those grants awarded, commented Brunner, there are at least five applicants. And even in light of that tough competition – and as a testament to the validity of GRF-funded research – two of these fourteen principal investigators are members of the GRF-funded Catalyst For a Cure research consortium. Philip Horner, PhD (University of Washington) and David Calkins, PhD (Vanderbilt) both were able to use results of research funded by GRF as supporting and preliminary information in their grant submissions to the NEI.
Turning to the non-profit sector, Poirson reported that combined funding in Fiscal 2007 provided through the non-profit sector totaled $2.8 million in grants awarded by the American Health Assistance Foundation (AHAF), The Glaucoma Foundation (TGF) based in New York, and the Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF) based in San Francisco.