Shaffer Fund for Innovative Glaucoma Research: First Six Grants Awarded

Recipients of the first six grants from the new Shaffer Fund for Innovative Glaucoma Research were announced January 23, 2008 at Glaucoma Research Foundation’s 30th Anniversary Benefit.

The Shaffer Grants continue our longstanding commitment to one-year incubation grants to explore novel or promising ideas in the study of glaucoma.

To date, we have awarded more than 120 Pilot Project grants. The 2008 Shaffer Fund research grants at $40,000 each were awarded to:

Paul Habib Artes, PhD
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
“Analysis of Progression in Glaucoma.”

Jamie Craig, PhD
Flinders University of South Australia
“Genome-wide association in Primary open-angle Glaucoma: The Blindness in Glaucoma Genetic Epidemiology Relative Risk Study.”

Brad Fortune, OD, PhD
Devers Eye Institute, Portland, OR
“Imaging the Course of Axonal Degeneration in Experimental Glaucoma.”

Kate E. Keller, PhD
Casey Eye Institute, Portland, OR
“RNAi Gene Silencing of Enzymes in the Glycosaminoglycan Biosynthetic Pathway.”

Raquel L. Lieberman, PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
“Development of Pharmacological Chaperone Therapy for Inherited Primary and Juvenile open-angle Glaucoma.”

Yutao Liu, MD, PhD
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
“Investigation of Gene Copy Number Variants in Primary open-angle Glaucoma.”

To read more about these grants, please visit our Shaffer Fund web page.

2008 Shaffer Prize Awarded

Mark Filla, PhD (University of Wisconsin - Madison) was selected by the GRF Scientific Advisory Committee to receive the first annual Shaffer Prize for Innovative Science based on the results of his research funded by a 2006 Pilot Project. Dr. Filla’s research points the way to possible new therapies less likely to elicit side effects.

His research results were selected for publication in the July 2006 edition of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science.