National Eye Institute grant supports research initiatives in major vision- robbing conditions

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Sep 11 2020

A $3 million National Eye Institute grant is enabling the critical infrastructure necessary to grow research initiatives in major vision-robbing conditions at the Medical College of Georgia and Augusta University.

The NEI center core grant, or P30 grant, comes at a time of critical development for the James and Jean Culver Vision Discovery Institute at Augusta University, and is key to the sustainability of future growth, says Dr. Sylvia Smith, chair of the MCG Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy and director of the Culver VDI. Smith, a NEI-funded retinal cell biologist, is principal investigator on the new P30 grant.

The Culver VDI currently includes 32 faculty members from MCG, the Dental College of Georgia, the College of Allied Health Sciences and The Graduate School at AU as well as the University of Georgia Experimental Therapeutics Program.

Areas of focus in the institute include disorders affecting the retina, cornea and lens, including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and the retinopathy that affects premature babies.

The grant provides support for organization of the critical expertise and infrastructure needed by these individual vision scientists, enables more efficient collaboration between them and their colleagues across the country, and encourages more collaborative projects with investigators in other fields with overlapping interests.

The infrastructure support is also a powerful recruitment tool for additional vision scientists, Smith says.

This growing group of scientists has always been a highly collaborative and collegial group, happy to share their expertise and equipment, but the grant enables us to formalize and expand our sharing more efficiently and effectively."

Dr. Sylvia Smith, Chair, Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University

Smith is also the director of the Culver VDI. The new grant will not support purchase of new equipment, Smith says, rather enables the logical clustering of the significant equipment AU has made available to individual vision investigators with a system in place to schedule equipment usage, train and assist investigators and laboratory personnel in its usage, troubleshoot problems and oversee equipment maintenance.

The three new modules include Visual Function Assessment, Histology and Imaging and Gene Expression/Proteomics.

Each module is directed by a more senior investigator and co-directed by a newer NEI-funded scientist with interest and expertise in the services offered. The grant pays a small percentage of the directors' salaries and provides some salary support for essential module personnel as well.

"What we have now is the manpower to help guide people," Smith says.