Vision Discovery Institute hosts Third Annual Retreat

The VDI held its third annual retreat in the River Room, St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Monday and Tuesday, February 14-15, 2011. The events for the retreat included a reception on Monday night and a day-long series of scientific presentations on Tuesday. The reception provided an opportunity for faculty, trainees and guests to interact with each other informally.

The 8-hour long retreat began on Tuesday morning, February 15 with welcoming remarks by Julian Nussbaum, M.D., clinical co-director, who spoke of our mission of engaging in high impact research and using that research in clinical applications. The VDI continues to focus on its goals, target fundraising, heightened community awareness and involvement, and concentrating on federal support and targeting recruitment within and beyond the GHSU/MCG community.

Special invited guests Ricardo Azziz, M.D., GSHU President and Peter Buckley, M.D., Dean of GHSU Medical College of Georgia spoke to the attendees noting the importance of clinical-translational initiatives on the MCG campus. Their opening remarks on Tuesday morning set the tone of enthusiasm about the exciting research enterprise on the campus. Sylvia Smith, Ph.D., basic science co-director of the VDI presented an update on the current status of the VDI. Effective interactions among the VDI have garnered a retina clinician, Dr. Diego Espinosa-Heidmann and two new faculty members, Drs. Abiodun Akinwuntan and Raymond Chong with the GHSU College of Allied Health Sciences. Plans for 2011 include enhancing visual function testing, fundraising activities through the Friends of Vision and a proposal for the Georgia Vision Rehabilitation Center.

                                                          

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Scientific presenters were:                                                                                                                                                                                                  Kathy P. Bradley, Ed.D., - "The Relationship between Two and Three Dimensional Visual Scanning and Quality of Life, Daily Living Skills and Safe Environment Mobility Among Adult Subjects"

   Junko Ariga, Graduate Student, Mumm lab,- "Bipolar Cell Loss and Regeneration in the Zebrafish Retina"

   Jay Hegde, Ph.D.,- "Standardizing a New Strategy of Visual Rehabilitation"

   Yogin Patel, Medical Student, Class of 2012 - "Novel Therapeutic Approach to Diabetic Retinopathy, Targeting the Roles of Glycated Albumin and Adenosine Receptor in Disease Medicated Inflammation"

   Azza El-Remessy, Ph.D.,  -"TXNIP Mediates Retinal Inflammation in a Neurotoxicity Model"

Jaya Pranava Gnana-Prakasam, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow - "Expression of Succinate Receptor GPR91 in Retinal Pigment Epithelium (RPE) and its Regulation by Iron"

Mohamed Al-Shabrawey,M.D., Ph.D., - "Lipoxygenase Pathway in Diabetic Retinopathy"

Kathryn Bollinger, M.D., Ph.D.,  - "Quantitative Proteomics Analysis of TGF-beta and Dexamethasone treated Trabecular Meshwork Cells"

Babak Baban, Ph.D., MBA,  - "IDO-Mediated Regulation of Endotoxin Induced-Uveitis"

 

              

Poster presentations were made by:

Mohammed Abdelsaid, Saif Ahmad, Sara Akeel, Ahmad Al-Azayzih, Renee Bozard, Xin Chen, Jason Covar, Shawn Elms, Deeksha Gambhir, Preethi Ganapathy, Karin Hauffen, Folami Lamoke, AnnaMaria Maraschi, Islam Mohamed, S. Priya Narayanan, L. Conant, K. Mohr, C. Skipper, E. Sanders, B. Webber, Chintan Patel, Modesto Rojas, Chaunte Stampley, Jutamas Suwanpradid, Steven Walker, Harumasa Yokota and Ming Zhang.

Our Moderators:

• Saif Ahmed, Ph.D. - Post Doctoral Fellow
• Shawn Elms - Graduate Research Assistant
• Ming Zhang, Ph.D. - Research Scientist
• Wenbo Zhang, Ph.D. - Assistant Research Scientist 

 

The next retreat will be held March 15-16, 2012 at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church River Room, 605 Reynolds Street, Augusta, GA.