 |
NIH Funding Rankings
The Vanderbilt Eye Institute ranked 17th in NIH funding among ophthalmology departments and eye institutes in the United States for 2008. The department received over $3,700,000 in funding. The top twenty programs are listed below:
1. Wilmer Eye Institute, John Hopkins
2. Scheie Eye Institute, University of Pennsylvania
3. Washington University Eye Center, Washington University
4. University of Wisconsin Eye Research Institute, University of Wisconsin
5. Duke Eye Center, Duke University
6. Doheny Eye Institute, University of Southern California
7. Jules Stein Eye Institute, University of California at Los Angeles
8. Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health Sciences University
9. Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan
10. Dean McGee Eye Institute, University of Oklahoma
11. Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami
12. Shiley Eye Center, University of California San Diego
13. Emory Eye Center, Emory University
14. Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Iowa
15. Department of Ophthalmology, University of California at San Francisco
16. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Eye Center
17. Vanderbilt Eye Institute, Vanderbilt University
18. Department of Ophthalmology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
19. John A. Moran Eye Center, University of Utah
20. Department of Ophthalmology, University of Illinois Chicago
October 27, 2009 |
 |
2009 Jules Elias Excellence in Immunohistochemistry Award
Jennifer Harvey, HT (ASCP) QIHC received the Jules Elias Excellence in Immunohistochemistry Award at the 2009 National Society for Histotechnology Society meeting in October. The award is sponsored by Dr. Cartun Hartford, of CT. This new award recognizes an NSH member that is currently utilizing immunohistochemistry in a clinical and/or research setting and is nominated by his/her peers for excellence in immunohistochemistry techniques. Congratulations to Jennifer Harvey!
October 16, 2009 |
|
2009 Fine Science Tool Travel Award
Congratulations to Ayan Ghoshal, David Godlove and Jamie Reed for being selected to receive the 2009 Fine Science Tool Travel Award. This award provides $500 towards the cost of attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago.
October 6, 2009 |
 |
2009 Fall Faculty Assembly Awards
At this years Fall Faculty Assembly, Gordon Logan, Tom Palmeri, and Jeff Schall were awarded a Chancellor's Award for Research for the theoretical and empirical work summarized in their wonderful 2007 Psychological Review paper. Their research has combined behavioral, electrophysiological, and computational methods to test and refine alternative models of the inhibitory control processes that are recruited during the stop-signal paradigm. It is very important to acknowledge additionally Leanne Boucher, who clearly has played a very central role in this line of work. Congratulations to all of them for their outstanding work!
Full Story
September 2, 2009 |
 |
Screening key to halting vision disorder in premature infants
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in children worldwide. If detected early, it can be treated.
But the diminishing number of trained specialists to screen premature babies for ROP is making it a tough condition to manage.
“It is becoming increasingly more difficult for NICUs to retain appropriate physician coverage to provide these exams,” said Franco Recchia, M.D., chief of the Retina Division at the Vanderbilt Eye Institute (VEI).
Full Story
August 20, 2009 |
|
Putting a name to a face may be key to brain's facial expertise
Our tendency to see people and faces as individuals may explain why we are such experts at recognizing them, new research indicates. This approach can be learned and applied to other objects as well.
“This new research adds to the evidence that the brain processes faces differently because of our expertise with them. It also tells us what it is about our experience with faces that leads us to treat them holistically,” Isabel Gauthier, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University and one of the study’s co-authors, said. “This knowledge may be useful in the development of training protocols for individuals with difficulties in face perception, such as individuals with autism spectrum disorders.”
Full Story
June 18, 2009 |
|
|
2009 William James Prize
Congratulations to Joel Pearson for winning the 2009 William James Prize for Contributions to the Study of Consciousness. This award is given each year by the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness "for an outstanding published contribution to the empirical or philosophical study of consciousness by a graduate student or postdoctoral scholar/researcher within 5 years of receiving a PhD or other advanced degree." The award-winning contribution was Joel's 2008 Current Biology paper on "The functional impact of mental imagery on conscious perception" (co-authored with Colin Clifford and Frank Tong).
June 15 , 2009 |
 |
Vanderbilt Vision Spring 2009 Publication
The Vanderbilt Eye Institute's Spring 2009 Vision Publication contains articles titled "Partnering in Surgery", "Determining the Best Treatments", "The Next Stage in Quantum Dot Imaging", and "Translational Research".
Vanderbilt Vision Spring 2009 PDF
June 2, 2009
|
 |
Vanderbilt Vision Research Center recognized with funding, awards
The Vanderbilt Vision Research Center is entering its third decade of supporting vision research across the university and medical center with the renewal of its core grant and recognition at key national conferences.
“The vision research center plays a crucial role in supporting the research of our faculty and students,” Provost Richard McCarty said. “Vision research is one of the core strengths of our university and we are very proud of the special recognition for this outstanding group of faculty and trainees.”
Full Story
June 2, 2009 |
|
|
Congratulations to John Penn
John S. Penn, PhD, Phyllis G. and William B. Snyder Professor and Vice Chairman of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Assistant Dean of Faculty Development has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). Penn served on the ARVO Long Range Planning Committee for four years prior to his election to the Board.
Penn was elected to a five-year term and will become one of 13 board members who govern the Association. Penn states that he is “thrilled to be elected to serve ARVO. This year’s meeting marked my 30th anniversary of uninterrupted attendance at the annual ARVO meeting. The Association is very important to me and to thousands of other vision scientists throughout the world because it facilitates basic and clinical scientist interaction. The basic scientists are inherently encouraged to consider the context and relevance of their work, and the clinical scientists are exposed to the latest research techniques arising from laboratories around the world. I conduct translational research in my lab, so this association and its meeting are right in my wheelhouse.”
Notably, Paul Sternberg, George W. Hale Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, is in his last year of service as an ARVO trustee, meaning that two of the thirteen board members are Vanderbilt faculty.
VUMC Reporter
May 19, 2009
|
 |
Fish, nuts, olive oil show promise against leading cause of blindness
Eating more fish, olive oil and nuts shows promising results in cutting the risk of developing the leading cause of blindness in older Americans.
Nearly 2 million Americans 55 and older suffer from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), with 200,000 per year suffering significant vision loss, according to Vanderbilt Eye Institute (VEI) experts. By the year 2020, an estimated 3 million Americans will suffer vision loss from advanced disease.
Franco Recchia, M.D., associate professor and chief of the retina division at VEI, says results from one of the first large-scale studies on AMD risks and omega-3 fatty acids suggests that incorporating healthy fats into the diet can reduce the risk of developing the retina-destroying -- and life-changing -- condition.
Full Story
May 15, 2009 |
|
|
Rising Stars
Congratulations to Chai-Youn Kim. She has been selected as a "Rising Star" from the Association for Psychological Science.
The Association for Psychological Science has presented another installment of "Rising Stars," a series profiling exemplars of today's young psychological researchers. This month and next month they are profiling international scholars who, although they may not be advanced in years, have already made great advancements in science. Chai-Youn, former graduate student and postdoc in Randolph Blake's Lab, was selected as a Rising Star. Her interview can be read here.
April 6, 2009
|
|
|
2009 Young Investigator Award
Congratulations to Frank Tong, who has been awarded the 2009 Young Investigator Award from the Vision Science Society. Frank is well known for his work on the neural basis of awareness and object recognition. He has also pioneered the development of pattern classification techniques that can identify and discriminate subtle differences in brain activity linked to specific perceptual states.
Congratulations Frank!
VSS Link • Vanderbilt Link
March 17, 2009 |
 |
Echoes discovered in early visual brain areas play role in working memory
Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered that early visual areas, long believed to play no role in higher cognitive functions such as memory, retain information previously hidden from brain studies. The researchers made the discovery using a new technique for decoding data from functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. The findings are a significant step forward in understanding how we perceive, process and remember visual information.
“We discovered that early visual areas play an important role in visual working memory,” Frank Tong, co-author of the research and an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt, said. “How do people maintain an active representation of what they have just seen moments ago? This has long been a conundrum in the literature.
Full Story
February 20, 2009 |
|
|
Congratulations to David Lyon the 2009 winner of the Randolph Blake Early Career Award
David Lyon is this year’s winner of the Randolph Blake Early Career Award. This award recognizes exemplary alumni of the program in Psychological Sciences in the early stages of their career.
David studied with Jon Kaas in the Psychology Department from 1995-2001, during which time he published a remarkable series of papers that clearly demonstrated that a visual area under contention, V3, was a component of the visual system of all primates. He also participated in, or was responsible for, a number of other research papers with important findings. He wrote one of the best reviews of visual system organization and evolution in an important 4-volume series The Evolution of Nervous Systems, Elsevier, 2007. He is the only person to have won two awards from the Cajal Club for research. He received further training in two major research laboratories, with Mriganka Sur at MIT, and with Ed Callaway at the Salk Institute. In 2006, he was hired as an Assistant Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine, and in 2007 he also received an appointment in the Department of Cognitive Sciences. David has a most impressive series of publications in the major neuroscience journals. The publications address a range of topics, and are based on some of the most powerful, yet difficult, of modern neuroscience methods. He has more papers coming out of all three laboratories where he trained, and his Irvine laboratory is fully functional where he is now training graduate students and producing new results.
Congratulations to David!
February 18, 2009 |
|
|
Fulbright Scholarship
Congratulations to Chi-Hung Juan for being awarded a Fulbright scholarship. Chi-Hung is currently an Associate Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at the National Central University in Jhongli, Taiwan. He previously was a postdoc in Jeff Schall's lab. More information about Fulbright Scholarships can be found here.
February 4, 2009 |
|
Gemstone Foundation Updates
The Gemstone Foundation has had great progress in elementary schools, with examples from California and Wisconsin.
In California, every child in one class had received visual skills training. They watched as the children stepped right up to the computer, logged in, and began the Dynamic Visual Skills program, with very few problems. "The children's enthusiasm was truly remarkable. I was amazed to learn we were observing the student's first experience with the training program."
In Wisconsin they found that students who subsequently do the 30-session Gemstone program improve visual skills and reading. They reported exciting results from students that participated.
The Gemstone Foundation wants to know more about the relationships between visual skills and reading. Visit their blog or website at the below address.
Gemstone Foundation Blog
Gemstone Foundation Website
January, 29, 2009 |
| .. |
News Headlines 2008 |
|
|
