Lincy Foundation Awards $2.4 Million to Discovery Eye Foundation
Lincy Foundation Awards $2.4 Million to Discovery Eye Foundation
The Los Angeles-based Discovery Eye Foundation has announced a grant of almost $2.4 million from the Lincy Foundation, the primary philanthropic vehicle of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian.
The grant will be used to support research related to the reconstruction of the outer retina by developing clinically useful therapies designed to retard and cure age-related macular degeneration. Scientists from multiple disciplines will continue to contribute their knowledge and expertise to the project, which began last year and has already resulted in six chapters in scientific books, ten peer-reviewed manuscripts, and several presentations on related topics at national and international meetings.
The principle investigators on the project, Dr. Henry Klassen, director of the Stem Cell and Retinal Generation Program at Morris S. Pynoos Eye Research Laboratories at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, and Michael Young of Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard University, are coordinating research conducted by scientists at eleven universities worldwide, including the University of Louisville; the University of Lunds in Sweden; the Eye Pathology Institute at the University of Copenhagen; the University of Missouri; MIT; the University of California, San Francisco; Boston University; Yale; and Case Western Reserve University.
The researchers hope their collaborative efforts will lead to clinical trials in humans within the next couple of years.
| 
