NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Vanderbilt University Vision Research Center
(VVRC) recently won a competitive renewal of a $2.8 million grant from
the National Eye Institute to train graduate and post-doctoral students
in vision research. The grant is the latest in a series of funds the
University has won to support vision research.
"Five years ago, Vanderbilt had eight NEI grants. Today we have 20,"
VVRC Director and E. Bronson Ingram Chair of Neuroscience Jeff Schall
said. "That is some of the greatest growth in vision research anywhere
in the country.
"Most trainees who have completed this program are now in faculty or
post-doctoral positions in well-known laboratories around the world,"
Schall continued. "We are using these funds to train the next
generation of vision scientists."
The training grant will support six pre-doctoral students and two
post-doctoral students who will work with faculty conducting eye and
vision research across the University.
"This grant acknowledges Vanderbilt’s emergence as one of the
premier centers for vision research in the country," George W. Hale
Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Paul Sternberg
said. "What is impressive about Vanderbilt’s vision research is that
the work is not just taking place in ophthalmology and psychology. We
have also funded scientists in pharmacology, biomedical engineering,
biology, pediatrics and cell biology, all of whom are doing work
related to the eye."
The training program supported by the NEI grant is designed to
develop new, independent investigators with the skills, knowledge and
perspective needed to translate between perception, brain systems,
neural signals and molecular mechanisms in normal and diseased visual
systems.
Vision research became a primary focus at Vanderbilt with the
formation of the VVRC in 1989. The VVRC comprises faculty and trainees
from departments across the campus united by the goal of understanding
the mechanisms of vision and visual disorders. The focus of research
and training has traditionally been to understand how we see through
psychophysical, physiological and anatomical investigations.
For more information on vision research at Vanderbilt, visit: http://vision-research.vanderbilt.edu.
Media contact: Melanie Catania, (615) 322-NEWS
Melanie.catania@vanderbilt.edu