All May See Foundation is pleased to announce the following new faculty research and postdoctoral fellows awards totalling $201,600, approved at its January 2025 Board meeting, to the UCSF Department of Ophthalmology and Francis I. Proctor Foundation, funded projects included:
PEER-REVIEWED FACULTY AWARDS
Title: Using Transcriptional Signatures to Evaluate Hypertrophic Pachymeningitis
- Principal Investigators: Nailyn Rasool, MD; Melike Pekmezci, MD
- Contributing Faculty: Marc Levin MD, PhD; Rabih Hage, MD; Jonathan Horton, MD, PhD; Michael Wilson, MD; Jeffrey Gelfand, MD; Patrick Devine, MD, PhD; Aurel Nagy, MD, PhD; Mary Karalius, MD
- Summary:Hypertrophic pachymeningitis is a serious neurological condition that affects people of all ages, causing symptoms such as vision and hearing loss, double vision, balance issues, and chronic headaches. It results from inflammation of the brain’s protective layer, the dura, which can be caused by infections, cancers, or autoimmune disorders. In many cases, the cause remains unknown, which delays treatment and leads to incomplete management. To address this, new diagnostic techniques like metagenomic next-generation sequencing and host transcriptional profiling are being explored. These methods analyze genetic material to identify infections or specific markers for autoimmune or cancer-related diseases. This research aims to improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with ‘idiopathic’ hypertrophic pachymeningitis, potentially reducing neurological damage and guiding more effective therapies.
Title: Collagen Modifersome in Vision Defects.
- Principal Investigator: Yoshihiro Ishikawa, PhD
- Project Summary: Collagens are essential building blocks for our bodies, which provide structure and support for tissues and organs. A specific type, Collagen IV, is particularly important for healthy eyes. This study focuses on a protein prolyl 4-hydroylase isoform 2 (P4HA2), which involves collagen IV production in the cells. Problems with P4HA2 can lead to high myopia. This research aims to understand how changes in P4HA2 disrupt collagen IV and cause this vision problem.
Title: Initial Cohort Study for Remote Investigation of Eye Dryness: A pilot and feasibility study for remote symptom and sample collection in dry eye disease clinical trials
- Principal Investigator: Gerami Seitzman, MD
- Contributing Faculty: Tom Lietman, MD; Thuy Doan, MD, PhD
- Summary: Dry eye disease is one of the most common eye diseases worldwide. Dry eye disease symptoms such as eye discomfort and vision changes frequently interfere with activities of daily living. Despite the multi-billion-dollar market for dry eye disease therapeutics, most clinical trials have failed to demonstrate clinically meaningful results. Small sample size and lack of study diversity are primary contributors to this problem. Moving the epicenter of dry eye clinical study away from doctors’ offices and into patients’ homes is a cost-efficient way to increase study sample size, recruitment diversity and study efficiency. Dry eye disease is an ideal candidate for study by remote clinical trial design. A decentralized clinical trial approach is an innovative way to study dry eye treatment efficacy, compare existing dry eye treatments, and efficiently study new dry eye treatments that come to market.
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW AWARDS
Title: Changes in retinal cone function following graded rod loss
- Principal Investigator: Paige Leary, PhD
- Research Mentor: Felice Dunn, PhD
- Summary: In the retina, rod and cone photoreceptors detect different features of light (night vision/low-light vision and color vision/motion detection, respectively). While rods and cones begin distinct pathways in the retina, several sites of overlap exist. The extent of this overlap, and whether or not the function of one pathway depends upon the other, is unclear. In diseases of retinal degeneration, rod vision impairment often occurs before cone vision impairment, suggesting at least some dependence of one pathway on the other. Prior work has established a genetic tool to selectively ablate increasing populations of rod photoreceptors in the mouse retina while leaving cone photoreceptors intact. This project aims to leverage this ablation technique to systematically evaluate cone pathway function in the face of increasing levels of rod loss by testing visually-guided behavioral, physiological, and anatomical consequences in the cone pathway. Completion of this project will reveal the relationship between rod loss and cone function, with the ultimate objective to eventually use these results to inform early diagnostics for photoreceptor dysfunction and candidate sites for therapeutic intervention in conditions of retinal degeneration.
Title: Drug Repurposing for Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) Corneal Toxicity
- Principal Investigator: Rongshan Yan, PhD
- Research Mentor: Neel Pasricha, MD
- Summary: Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are promising targeted cancer therapies that deliver toxic drugs directly to cancer cells, in theory reducing damage to healthy tissues. However, about 50% of ADCs cause patients to experience significant corneal toxicity, leading to eye pain and blurry vision. Current treatments are not effective at preventing or treating ADC corneal toxicity, which requires patients to delay, reduce, or discontinue their ADC therapy. Our research focuses on understanding how ADCs enter corneal cells through a process called macropinocytosis, often referred to as “cell drinking.” By inhibiting this process with repurposed drug compounds, we aim to prevent ADC corneal toxicity. This work could lead to the first effective treatment for ADC corneal toxicity, allowing cancer patients to safely receive potentially life-saving ADC therapy.
Projects were selected through a competitive peer-review process where faculty and postdoctoral fellows propose new research, and the top-rated proposals are awarded “kick-starter” funding to get their projects up and running.
The Foundation’s goal is that these awards will enable recipients to generate data that will support larger scale proposals, leveraging the funds to generate additional external federal and private support. Our objective is to hasten scientific breakthroughs in diseases of the eye – here and around the world.
All May See Foundation is committed to saving and restoring sight and inspiring hope that, one day, all may see.