Iowa Eye Association News Oct. 2004. Series 2, no. 39.

University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

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Faculty News

Wallace L.M. Alward, M.D., was awarded a Lew Wasserman Award from Research to Prevent Blindness in June 2004. This award recognizes him for his outstanding clinical and research contributions in glaucoma. Along with the highly deserved recognition that comes with the Wasserman Award, Dr. Alward will receive $55,000 in unrestricted funds for his research in glaucoma.

Dr. Alward was also recognized in 2003 with a Veterans Administration Ten Year Service Award. Dr. Alward has been busy on the lecture circuit this year. He delivered the 5th Annual Clinician - Scientist Lecture of the American Glaucoma Society in Sarasota, Florida, on March 6, 2004, and the 14th Schoenberg Lecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago on May 12, 2004. He delivered invited lectures internationally at the All India Glaucoma Society Meeting in Tirunelveli, India, September 21-22, 2003; the Chilean Congress of Ophthalmology in Vildivia, Chile, December 4-6, 2003; the European Glaucoma Specialist Meeting in Rome, Italy, January 16, 2004; and Ophthalmology Update - From Front to Back, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, March 25-27, 2004. Dr. Alward was also invited to lecture at the Wills Eye Hospital 40th Anniversary of the Glaucoma Service, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 3-5, 2003, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology/Ophthalmic Pathology Society, Anaheim, California, November 18, 2003.

Retina Research Fellow, Ali Hakan Durukan, M.D., has been investigating the use of a hyperspectral fundus imager, a new fundus camera, to evaluate the spectral reflectance of the retina in normal and selected pathologic situations when disease-specific spectral abnormalities exist. Dr. Durukan returned to Turkey in late August.

Karen M. Gehrs, M.D., will be awarded a 2004 American Academy of Ophthalmology Achievement Award at the AAO Annual Meeting in New Orleans, October 23-26, 2004. The award is given to recipients for contributions made to the Academy, its scientific and educational programs, and to ophthalmology.

Kenneth M. Goins, M.D., is participating, with study coordinator, Lisa Milder, in the “Rebamipide for dry eye study.” Rebamipide is a mucin cell stimulator that may enhance the precorneal tear film in dry eye patients. The study is sponsored by Otsuka Maryland Research Institute.

Randy H. Kardon, M.D., Ph.D., was awarded a 3-year $407,000 grant from the VA entitled, “Predicting Rehabilitation of Visual Loss in Compressive Optic Neuropathy,” beginning July 1, 2004. This grant is in addition to Dr. Kardon’s 5-year Veterans Administration Merit Review grant and is the first grant awarded to the Iowa City VA from the Rehabilitation Grant Division of the Veterans Administration. In this study, Dr. Kardon and others will use optical coherence tomography (OCT) and scanning laser polarimetry (GDx) to investigate how the pre-treatment retinal nerve fiber layer thickness will predict how much visual loss is reversible and hence give prognostic information on the expected outcome of decompression or radiation as treatments. In addition, Kardon and colleagues will record the pattern evoked electroretinogram (PERG) and visual evoked potential (VEP) to evaluate the effect of optic nerve compression on the retinal ganglion cell signal origination and the conduction to visual cortex.

Interzeag/Haag Streit also funded a $49,000 proposal that Dr. Kardon submitted on using the new kinetic perimeter and static perimetry to correlate with OCT of the nerve fiber layer in glaucoma and optic neuropathies. This is a two-year project that he will do with Dr. Aki Kawasaki in Lausanne, Switzerland. See the accompanying story on page 10, about OCT at Iowa and the story on page 2, regarding Dr. Kardon’s promotion to full professor.

Ronald V. Keech, M.D., William E. Scott Chair for Education in Pediatric Ophthalmology, was a recipient of the 2004 American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus Senior Honor Award. The award was presented at the AAPOS annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in March 2004.

Dr. Young Kwon

Dr. Markus Kuehn

“Molecular mechanisms of steroid-induced glaucoma,” a grant proposal submitted by Young H. Kwon, M.D., Ph.D., and Markus Kuehn, Ph.D., was funded by the American Health Assistance Foundation. The total award is about $70,000 over two years and started on April 1, 2004. “The aim of the study is to determine the differences that exist between the eyes of people who develop steroid-induced ocular hypertension and those who do not,” explains Dr. Kuehn. “It is known that steroids influence which genes are turned on and off in the trabecular meshwork. The underlying hypothesis of these studies is that those patients who do develop elevated intraocular pressure express a different set of genes in the trabecular meshwork when exposed to steroids than those who do not. In order to identify these genes, pairs of human donor eyes will be preserved in a perfusion organ culture system which allows identification of steroid responsive donors and subsequent gene expression analyses. The identification of genes whose expression is linked to the development of steroid-induced glaucoma could be significant for the clinical management of patients at risk for steroid-induced glaucoma through the identification of genetic markers as risk factors of steroid-induced OHT. In addition, these data might be valuable in the development of drugs that specifically affect those biochemical pathways which are aberrantly activated or deactivated by steroids in responders.” Young H. Kwon, M.D., Ph.D., was listed in Guide to America’s Top Ophthalmologists, Consumers’ Research Council of America and Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare, Marquis Who’s Who, New Providence, New Jersey. Dr. Kwon was also listed in 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century, International Biographical Center, Cambridge, England, where he was also nominated for “International Scientist of the Year” and “International Health Professional of the Year.”

In February, Carver Medical Research Initiative Grant Pilot Project announced that it has funded Dr. Robert F. Mullins’ project, “Endothelial Cell Fenestrae-Associated Molecules: Preliminary Studies.” Dr. Mullins explains that “endothelial cells of the choriocapillaris contain porous fenestrae that regulate their permeability (photograph below). The aims of this grant are to understand better the cellular machinery involved in the synthesis of these pores, as well as to begin to identify the molecules that comprise fenestrae.” This is a 2-year, $26,000 grant.

Research to Prevent Blindness awarded a three-year Career Development Award to Todd E. Scheetz, Ph.D. The RPB Research Career Development Award was established in 1990 to attract young physicians and basic scientists to eye research. Dr. Scheetz is a Computational Scientist for the Coordinated Laboratory for Computational Genomics (CLCG) and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. Information about the CLCG is available on the web at http://genome.uiowa.edu/clcg.html.

Dr. John Sutphin

Dr. Kenneth Goins

John E. Sutphin, M.D., has been participating on the American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO) knowledge base panel for Cornea and External Disease. Dr. Sutphin has also recently been made the Clinical Sciences Section Editor for The Ocular Surface.

Dr. Sutphin and Dr. Kenneth Goins are participating in the “Restasis for Atopic Keratoconjunctivitis Study” sponsored by Allergan. The purpose of this research study is to investigate the efficacy and safety of cyclosporine eye drops in the treatment of atopic keratoconjunctivitis. Drs. Sutphin and Goins are also participating in a study of deep lamellar endothelial keratoplasty (DLEK), a new surgical technique in the management of endothelial dystrophy of the cornea. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a split thickness corneal transplant would be a more effective way to replace endothelium cells. DLEK uses a lamellar transplant to replace only the diseased tissue and leaves the rest of the cornea intact.

Emeritus Professor of Ophthalmology, H. Stanley Thompson, M.D., received the North American Neuro-ophthalmology Society (NANOS) Distinguished Service Award at the NANOS meeting in March 2004.

The 27th Annual Francis Heed Adler Lectureship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Scheie Eye Institute honored Thomas A. Weingeist, Ph.D., M.D., on April 3, 2004, in recognition for his outstanding contributions to ophthalmology and vision sciences. His lecture was “Choroidal Melanoma 2004: Differential diagnosis and cancer research.” The Francis Heed Adler Lectureship, given annually at the Scheie Eye Institute, recognizes an internationally renowned ophthalmologist who has made substantial contributions to ophthalmology and vision sciences. Dr. Francis Heed Adler served as Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1937-1960.