USC Eye Trauma Program Wins $800,000 in Federal Funding

Monday, March 08, 2010:

Keck School of Medicine of USC professor of ophthalmology Mark Humayun

Restoring sight for combat troops who have suffered eye injuries in battle is one of the goals of a research program based at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), which will be supported by $800,000 in funding from the Department of Defense.

The Eye Trauma and Visual Restoration (EyeTVR) program funding request was submitted and supported by Congressman Adam B. Schiff (D-Pasadena), representing California's 29th Congressional District. The funding is part of the federal fiscal year 2010 budget under the congressional special interest program.

EyeTVR brings together innovation in biomedical engineering, genetic medicine, and regenerative medicine technologies to pave the way for unparalleled advances that promise to save, and even restore, sight to troops with traumatic eye injuries. The broader goal of the program is to save and restore sight to veterans and veterans' family members who suffer eye injury, eye infection, and inherited or age-related eye disease. The new applications developed through EyeTVR are expected to eventually be available to the public.

A secondary benefit of EyeTVR funding will be the creation of jobs for scientists and staff in the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas and the creation of job training opportunities for students. The project includes ophthalmologists, engineers, and scientists from leading institutions in Los Angeles and Pasadena.

EyeTVR will be coordinated by the Keck School and will involve researchers from Keck, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Doheny Eye Institute, Los Angeles; Huntington Medical Research Institute (HMRI), Pasadena; California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena; and Pasadena City College (PCC).

"Iraq war veterans are experiencing more than double the traumatic eye and brain injuries of World War II combat troops," said Carmen A. Puliafito, M.D., M.B.A., Keck School dean and an ophthalmologist who will advise the program. "Modern medicine has saved more troops lives than ever. The EyeTVR program, supported by Congressman Schiff, will help us develop the tools we need to apply the success of modern medicine to the complex injuries related to eye trauma and loss of sight suffered by our soldiers and Marines."

"I'm also excited that the new technologies will be immediately applicable to saving and restoring sight in individuals with blinding diseases such as inherited retinal degeneration or age-related macular degeneration."

Congressman Schiff noted that top researchers and scientists in the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas are collaborating on the project.

"Roadside bombs, grenades and mortars are causing thousands of eye injuries to our troops serving on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. This path-breaking initiative will help provide the best recovery possible for all of our troops," said Congressman Schiff. "I'm very proud that the extraordinary scientific and medical talent in our community can help our injured troops regain their vision."

EyeTVR features three subprograms focusing on the following goals:

  • Functional Imaging -- to develop innovative methods to visualize retinal and optic nerve structure and to determine whether cells in these tissues are functioning properly

  • Molecular Therapeutics -- to restore a degree of sight in individuals suffering loss of photoreceptors using a novel gene therapy approach

  • Biomaterials -- to develop materials to promote wound healing and the attachment of devices to the retina and the visual centers of the brain, enabling the functional placement of visual prosthetics or drug delivery systems

    • Within this structure, five individual projects will be supported by the FY2010 appropriation, involving eight different faculty investigators from the partner institutions. The team includes Mark Humayun, Shuliang Jiao, James Weiland, and Alan Horsager from Keck and Viterbi; Yu-Chong Tai from Caltech; and Douglas McCreery, Victor Pikov, and Martin Han from HMRI.

    The program will also fund research internships for students in Pasadena City College's biotechnology program, enabling them to apprentice in the labs of EyeTVR program investigators. Pamela Eversole-Cire, Ph.D. directs the biotechnology program at PCC. She joined the PCC faculty following a post-doctoral fellowship at Caltech in the field of retinal degenerative disease. The PCC biotechnology program enrolls a highly diverse student body and is very successful in placing graduates in local jobs within academics and industry.

    Grant funding is expected to be finalized in fall 2010.

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