PHOTO: (From Left) Brian Hofland, PhD, President of Research to Prevent Blindness; Maria Grant, MD; and Paul Sternberg, Jr., MD, Chief Executive Officer, Association of Professors of Ophthalmology. Maria Grant, MD, Professor and Eivor and Alston Callahan, MD, Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, (UAB) has recently been honored with the RPB David F. Weeks Award for Outstanding Vision Research.
The RPB David F. Weeks Award, named in honor of former RPB President and Chairman David F. Weeks, recognizes exceptional vision researchers whose work significantly advances the understanding and treatment of potentially blinding eye diseases.
The Grant Laboratory at UAB investigates the growth and organization of vascular endothelial cells both in health and aberrant angiogenesis with the goal of understanding mechanisms responsible for ocular neovascularization and diabetic retinopathy, with a focus on understanding vascular repair mechanisms involving the role reparative bone marrow derived cells and vascular wall derived stem cells. Grant’s groundbreaking research focuses on utilizing human embryonic stem cells for vascular repair, a discovery that holds transformative potential for treating retinal diseases. Her pioneering efforts in targeted gene expression offer novel therapeutic possibilities for tissue repair throughout the body.
Photography credit to the Association of University of Professors of Ophthalmology