Research to Prevent Blindness gives big boost to local institute
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) gave a big boost to the Dean McGee Eye Institute in the form of a grant that only 30 total institutions in the country hold.
Research in labs like those at the Dean McGee Eye Institute’s Department of Ophthalmology will be funded with $115,000 per year for the next 5 years thanks to the grant. Their hope is that it will keep them on the cutting edge of blindness prevention research.
"It's really a testament to the success of our amazing researchers here,” The eye institute CEO and chair of the University of Oklahoma’s Dept. of Ophthalmology Mike Siatkowski said.
Siatkowski credits those putting in the work on things like one of their most recent lab discoveries. It’s a gene therapy treatment that they now use to help people see that originally went blind due to a childhood gene mutation in the eye.
"We've been we've been fortunate to treat four different eyes of Oklahomans with this new drug,” he said.
The hope is for more findings with the unrestricted grant from the RPB. It will total out to about $575,000 over the next 5 years. Their main focus right now is on eye infections and diseases like glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy.
"Our researchers are working on ways to understand how problems occur there and find new ways to prevent and treat these,” Siatkowski said.
It should also allow them to go outside of what other grants wouldn’t allow like getting new equipment or fixing the older equipment. Siatkowski said their researchers have a good eye for finding what will help Oklahomans and those around the world.
"It's a group of people that all Oklahomans should be really proud of because they're making a big difference for the people of our state,” he said.
The funds will be deployed at the discretion of Siatkowski. He said he wants to see flexibility in developing and expanding eye research programs and to give opportunities for more creative planning. For more on the grant and those who received it, visit the link embedded in this article.