Nearly 200 UCLA volunteers help provide medical, dental and vision services.

UCLA health care professionals helped treat thousands of uninsured patients for free at the L.A. Sports Arena.

For Gilda McKoy, the Care Harbor health clinic at the L.A. Sports Arena was a godsend. The 58-year-old was experiencing pain in her knees, and it had been quite some time since her last blood pressure check and pap smear. Lacking medical insurance, she had been praying for help when she heard about the annual clinic, where she celebrated her birthday on Sept. 28 by receiving a free health exam.

McKoy was one of nearly 3,800 patients who lined up for health care services provided by a small army of volunteer health care professionals — including nearly 200 volunteers from the UCLA Health System and the schools of dentistry and nursing. Organized by Care Harbor in collaboration with L.A. Care Health Plan and Dignity Health, and co-sponsored by the UCLA Health System, the Sept. 27-30 clinic provided free medical, dental and vision services for those who are uninsured or otherwise can’t afford proper health care.

“God is really working when you pray,” said an appreciative McKoy. “God is good, and these people who are doing this, may God bless them.”

The UCLA volunteers provided on-the-spot treatment for a wide variety of ailments and, in some cases, gave  referrals for followup care.

For Dr. Carol Mangione, professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine, volunteering at the clinic reflected her concerns about the acute need for health care among that L.A.’s underserved — and oftentimes unemployed — population.

“It’s sad so many people need services like this in Los Angeles,” said Mangione, who added, “I don’t think events like this will disappear after the Affordable Care Act is implemented. Since the act doesn’t include undocumented people, Los Angeles will continue to need these clinics.”

Dr. Anne Coleman, professor-in-residence and director of Jules Stein Eye Institute’s community outreach, led a team of 17 volunteer UCLA ophthalmologists who saw patients with diabetes-related eye illnesses, as well as conditions like glaucoma, cataracts and keratoconus, a deformity of the cornea. This is the fourth year in a row that Coleman has volunteered.

“I think it’s a very important part of life to give back,” Coleman said. “I’ve been given a lot and it’s nice to see how engaged UCLA is in community outreach.”

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Foresight is 20/20.

UC San Diego’s EyeMobile program reaches half of the low-income preschool children in San Diego County.

The future is brighter for thousands of underprivileged patients, from the very young to the very old, thanks to services provided by UC’s optometry programs.

About half of the 100,000 patients seen each year at UC Berkeley’s School of Optometry clinics come from all walks of life in the community at large. Exams and services also are provided off-campus, in schools, community clinics, nursing facilities and even homes to patients who otherwise do not have easy access to vision care.

Mobile eye clinics also are operated by UCLA, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco. The UCLA Mobile Eye Clinic, established in 1975 by an anonymous donor, remains a privately funded outreach program of UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute that provides high-quality eye care to underserved populations. In a typical year, 4,000 children and 1,000 adults get exams free of charge. An additional 1,500 people receive vision and glaucoma screenings at health fairs and 400 underserved children are given free prescription eyeglasses.

UC San Diego EyeMobile manager Abel Aramburo with a patient

Since 2004, UCSF Medical Center and San Francisco General Hospital have operated a Mobile Eye Service for the San Francisco community that provides a full spectrum of eye services, including vision-saving screenings. The service sends a van that provides eye care to underserved patients — particularly the elderly, the homeless and low-income families — whose access to eye services is often limited because of a lack of transportation or cultural and language barriers.

UC San Diego’s EyeMobile program reaches half of the low-income preschool children in San Diego County. The kids receive free vision screening, exams, glasses and ophthalmic care services to give them a chance to see and learn. Since it began in 2000, the program has screened more than 107,000 San Diego preschoolers, performed more than 17,000 exams and provided more than 6,900 pairs of glasses.

The UC San Diego EyeMobile van

“A lot of them wouldn’t get glasses if we weren’t here,” EyeMobile manager Abel Aramburo said. “After they get the glasses, you see a remarkable improvement.”

Related links:

• UC Berkeley
• UCLA
• UC San Diego
• UCSF
• UC Health community impact brochure

Findings could lead to powerful new weapon in battle against disease-causing invaders.

Proteins in the eye can help keep pathogens at bay, finds a new UC Berkeley study.

When it comes to germ-busting power, the eyes have it, according to a discovery by University of California, Berkeley, researchers that could lead to new, inexpensive antimicrobial drugs.

A team of UC Berkeley vision scientists has found that small fragments of keratin protein in the eye play a key role in warding off pathogens. The researchers also put synthetic versions of these keratin fragments to the test against an array of nasty pathogens. These synthetic molecules effectively zapped bacteria that can lead to flesh-eating disease and strep throat (Streptococcus pyogenes), diarrhea (Escherichia coli), staph infections (Staphylococcus aureus) and cystic fibrosis lung infections (Pseudomonas aeruginosa).

The findings, to be published in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could lead to a powerful new weapon in the battle against disease-causing invaders. These keratin fragments are relatively easy to manufacture, making them good candidates for low-cost therapeutics, the study authors said.

“What’s really exciting is that the keratins in our study are already in the body, so we know that they are not toxic, and that they are biocompatible,” said the study’s principal investigator, Suzanne Fleiszig, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Optometry who specializes in infectious diseases and microbiology. “The problem with small, naturally occurring, antimicrobial molecules identified in previous research is that they were either toxic or easily inactivated by concentrations of salt that are normally found in our bodies.”

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UC Davis surgeons perform eye implant.

Virginia Bane now looks forward to doing artwork again.

Surgeons at UC Davis Medical Center have successfully implanted a new telescope implant in the eye of a patient with end-stage age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most advanced form of the disease and a leading cause of blindness in older Americans.

The device, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2010, is the only medical/surgical option available that restores a portion of vision lost to the disease. UC Davis Health System’s Eye Center, in collaboration with the Society for the Blind, is one of the few in California and the nation to offer the innovative procedure.

“Macular degeneration damages the retina and causes a blind spot in a person’s central field of vision. The telescopic implant restores vision by projecting images onto an undamaged portion of the retina, which makes it possible for patients to again see people’s faces and the details of objects located directly in front of them,” said Mark Mannis, professor and chair of ophthalmology and vision sciences and director of the Eye Center at UC Davis Health System.”

The exact cause of dry macular degeneration is unknown, but the condition develops as the eye ages. The macula is made up of millions of light-sensing cells that provide sharp, detailed central vision. It is the most sensitive part of the retina, which is located at the back of the eye. The retina quickly turns light into electrical signals and then sends these electrical signals to the brain through the optic nerve. The brain translates the electrical signals into images. If the macula is damaged, fine points in these images are not clear.

The implantable telescope technology reduces the impact of the central vision blind spot from advanced macular degeneration.

In May, UC Davis cornea specialists Mannis and Jennifer Li implanted the miniature telescope, which is smaller than a pea, in the left eye of 89-year-old Pollock Pines resident Virginia Bane, an artist who stopped painting four years ago when macular degeneration took away her central vision. Bane is the first in Northern California and among the first 50 individuals in the nation to receive the implant.

“I can see better than ever now,” Bane said. “Colors are more vibrant, beautiful and natural, and I can read large print with my glasses. I haven’t been able to read for the past seven years. I look forward to being able to paint again.”

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UC Davis’ Mark Mannis works to help fight preventable blindness in developing countries.

Mark Mannis, UC Davis

The humanitarian act of cornea donation – a gift from a donor to recipient – went worldwide recently, with the help of Mark J. Mannis, ocular director for Sierra Donor Services, and its parent company, DCI Donor Services. Mannis is also professor and chair of ophthalmology and vision science and director of the Eye Center at UC Davis Health System.

Mannis traveled to San Salvador, El Salvador, with two corneas recovered through Sierra Donor Services as well as corneas from other eye banks around the U.S., as part of the Flying Eye Hospital sponsored by ORBIS International and FedEx Corp.

The Flying Eye Hospital is a specially outfitted DC-10 jet aircraft that allows local doctors, nurses and technicians to work alongside an international medical team to conduct sight-restoring surgeries and to exchange knowledge and improve skills. The mobile teaching hospital is a unique tool in the fight against preventable blindness in developing countries.

Mannis participated in a weeklong comprehensive skills exchange program aimed at strengthening the field of corneal surgery and raising awareness of eye care related conditions in El Salvador. In the four days of surgery on the Flying Eye Hospital, Mannis performed 11 corneal transplants and provided surgical instruction to his El Salvadorian assistants. In addition, he lectured on corneal surgery in the jeliner’s 48-seat classroom at the front of the plane.

“Many talented and compassionate people were involved in helping to give the people of Central America the gift of sight,” Mannis said. “We are all working to fight treatable and preventable blindness around the globe. Through the Flying Eye Hospital Program, we offered  skills-exchange opportunities to a wide range of eye health-care professionals, while focusing on the development of pediatric ophthalmology, an area of great need in El Salvador.”

Mannis is a visionary leader and international authority on corneal transplantation and external diseases of the eye whose 30-year commitment to public service has tremendously advanced eye-banking and tissue-donation services and medical education in the United States and throughout the world, especially in Latin America. His efforts to increase the number of high-quality ocular tissues available for transplant, as well as the number of ophthalmologists and technicians trained in the latest corneal transplant and eye-banking methodologies, have enabled thousands of individuals with blinding eye diseases around the globe to receive the gift of sight.

Under Mannis’ leadership, the UC Davis Eye Center has become one of the nation’s top academic centers that combines the very highest quality vision health care services with cutting-edge ophthalmic science for the treatment of all forms of medical and surgical eye disease. Mannis exemplifies UC Davis’ institutional commitment to combining academic excellence with social responsibility and leadership to transform health care.

Sierra Donor Services (SDS) is a nonprofit agency dedicated to meeting the needs of the community by providing families the option of organ and tissue donation for transplantation and research. SDS serves northern Nevada and inland Northern California, including Sacramento. As a division of the DCI Donor Services family, SDS is one of four locations that includes DCI Donor Services Tissue Bank, Tennessee Donor Services and New Mexico Donor Services. For more information, visit sierradonor.org.

UC Davis Health System is improving lives and transforming health care by providing excellent patient care, conducting groundbreaking research, fostering innovative, interprofessional education, and creating dynamic, productive partnerships with the community. The academic health system includes one of the country’s best medical schools, a 619-bed acute care teaching hospital, a 1,000-member physician’s practice group and the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. It is home to a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, an international neurodevelopmental institute, a stem cell institute and a comprehensive children’s hospital. Other nationally prominent centers focus on advancing telemedicine, improving vascular care, eliminating health disparities and translating research findings into new treatments for patients. Together, they make UC Davis a hub of innovation that is transforming health for all. For more information, visit healthsystem.ucdavis.edu.

E-health house calls, novel probiotics among research funded.

Telemedicine is just one of the technologies that can assist in health management to patients in rural areas.

UC Davis Health System faculty are among the principal investigators and collaborators awarded funding from the new Research Investments in Sciences and Engineering (RISE) program to conduct innovative, multidisciplinary research in areas of strategic importance to California, the nation and the world.

Established by the UC Davis Office of Research earlier this year, the program has awarded a total of $10 million to support 12 research projects over the next three years. Five projects are led by UC Davis Health System faculty.

“These grants are an example of recombinant innovation, bringing together established faculty and programs in new ways to generate solutions to many of society’s most difficult challenges,” said Fred Meyers, executive associate dean at UC Davis School of Medicine. “Projects range from the need for new tools to help individuals with chronic diseases better manage their health to innovative tests and therapies for schizophrenia. The UC Davis awards will lead to new knowledge and technologies that will transform health and health care and create new opportunities for interprofessional research and education at the undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral levels.”

• Professor and Chair of Medical Microbiology and Immunology Satya Dandekar is leading research on Protecting the Fragile Intestine: Integrating Microbiota and Muscosal Health. The researchers will apply a novel combination of milk-derived oligosaccharides and a uniquely human Bifidobacterium species known to have anti-inflammatory effects on immune cells to repair and protect the intestine in critical clinical populations, including premature infants, HIV-infected adults with incomplete immune recovery, chemotherapy patients and individuals with inflammatory bowel disease. She is collaborating with Bruce German in the food science and technology department, Mark Underwood in pediatric neonatology, David Mills in the viticulture and enology department, Ralph deVere White from the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, Richard Pollard in infectious diseases and Thomas Prindiville in gastroenterology and hepatology.
• Jay Han, an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, is directing research to develop wireless sensor and mobile health (mHealth) technologies to empower individuals with chronic diseases. The project initially will focus on the use of smartphones to assess a patient’s medical status, which has potential applications for conducting e-house calls and other interactions between patients and caregivers. The project will assess the technological barriers, usability, privacy and security issues, integration with electronic health record, large data-set storage and analysis methodologies, and policy issues, which lays the groundwork for broadening the use of mobile health technologies. Han, who is also medical director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS),  is collaborating with Prasant Mohapatra in the computer science department; Thomas Nesbitt, associate vice chancellor for strategic technologies and alliances and director of the UC Davis Center for Health and Technology; Lars Berglund, director of the UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center; and Heather Young, founding dean of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
• Kimberley McAllister, professor of neurology at the School of Medicine and of neurobiology, physiology and behavior at the Center for Neuroscience, is leading studies investigating the neuroimmunological basis of schizophrenia. Dubbed I-CAN SZ, the project will test the idea that maternal infection during pregnancy contributes to the development of schizophrenia by altering immune molecules in the brains of offspring, which leads to changes in the way brain cells make connections. By discovering novel diagnostic tools and new therapies, the project aims to improve the lives of individuals with schizophrenia. Collaborators on the project include faculty from the departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology, Biomedical Engineering, Internal Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, and the UC Davis MIND Institute.
• Edward Pugh, a professor in the departments of physiology and membrane biology and of cell biology and human anatomy, is leading the UC Davis Eye-Pod project, which will employ novel adaptive optics imaging of single cells in the eyes of living animals under normal, pathogenic and regenerative conditions. Adaptive optics imaging will enable simultaneous, quantitative assessment of cellular morphology and many basic functions for use in testing stem cell and other therapeutic interventions in animal models of major diseases. Collaborators include: Paul Fitzgerald, Nadean Brown, Marie Burns and Tom Glaser in the cell biology and human anatomy department; Jan Nolta from the Center for Regenerative Cures; Susanna Park and Larry Hjelmeland from the UC Davis Health System Eye Center; Scott Simon in biomedical engineering department; FitzRoy Curry in the physiology and membrane biology department; and Hwai-Jong Cheng and Jon Werner in neurobiology, physiology and behavior.
• Simon Cherry, professor of biomedical engineering and radiology, is working to build the infrastructure and expertise for a UC Davis Center for Translational Molecular Imaging. The center will translate novel molecular imaging agents and new imaging devices for clinical research studies. The first project will take a novel molecular imaging agent validated in pre-clinical studies and perform the first clinical studies in humans to establish a translational pathway at UC Davis. It also will fund initial development for building a whole-body PET scanner with unprecedented sensitivity and body coverage that would represent an advanced imaging platform for new molecular imaging agent assessments. Co-investigators include: Ramsey Badawi in the radiology department; Julie Sutcliffe in the internal medicine department; Jinyi Qi in the biomedical engineering department; Lars Berglund , director of the UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center;  Alice Tarantal in the pediatrics department; and Karen Kelly at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Other projects led by faculty with appointments on the UC Davis campus include collaborations with UC Davis Health System specialists.

• Katherine Ferrara in the Department of Biomedical Engineering has established a Center for Content Rich Evaluation of Therapeutic Efficacy (cCRETE) to address the critical need for new screening tools for cancer therapeutics. The new center includes cancer biologists, pre-clinical pharmacologists, social scientists, bioinformatics experts and bioeningeers who are focused on developing and validating high-throughput biomarker assays for their therapeutic value against on invasive cancers, including bladder, colon, pancreas, lung, breast and glioblastomas. Collaborators include: Ralph deVere White, director of the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center; Fredric Gorin in neurology; Clifford Tepper in the biochemistry and molecular medicine department; Graduate School of Management Dean Steven Currall; Bruce Hammock in the entomology department; Dawei Lin from the Genome Center; and Alexander Revzin in biomedical engineering.
• Dermatology Professor Fu-Tong Liu also is collaborating with project leader Kwan Liu Ma in the computer science department to establish the UC Davis Center for Visualization. The project also includes faculty from the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Sociology, and Design as well as from the Institute of Transportation Studies.

Funding for the RISE program came from indirect costs generated by awards made to UC Davis under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.  These research-related revenues were set aside by Chancellor Katehi for campus-wide reinvestment in research, consistent with the goals of the chancellor’s Vision of Excellence, the university’s strategic plan through 2020.

UCSF-led team of international researchers develops criteria to identify autoimmune disease.

Sjögren’s syndrome largely was unknown to the American public until tennis star Venus Williams withdrew from the U.S. Open last year and announced she had the autoimmune disease, in which a person’s white blood cells attack glands that produce tears and saliva.

Now, new guidelines have been developed by an international consortium of researchers, led by those from UC San Francisco, to better support diagnosis and genetics research of Sjögren’s syndrome. It’s the first time the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) has approved classification criteria for the disease.

The criteria are outlined in the article, “American College of Rheumatology Classification Criteria for Sjögren’s Syndrome: A Data-Driven, Expert Consensus Approach in the Sjögren’s International Collaborative Clinical Alliance Cohort,” published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

As many as 4 million Americans are living with this disease, according to the Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation. It’s the second-most common autoimmune rheumatic disease in the United States, with women representing 90 percent of those affected.

The effects from the dryness they experience can be quite significant.

“Tooth decay may be one of the signs which actually makes a dentist suspect that a patient has Sjögren’s syndrome,” said co-lead author of the study Caroline Shiboski, D.D.S, Ph.D., professor of oral medicine at UCSF School of Dentistry. “Such dramatic tooth destruction can be prevented with early diagnosis of salivary hypofunction and prescription of topical fluoride.”

Diagnosis and management of Sjögren’s syndrome requires three areas of specialty practice: rheumatology, ophthalmology and oral medicine/pathology.

Until now, doctors diagnosing the disease relied on a combination of objective tests and subjective features such as patient reports of signs and symptoms.

“Some of the subjective manifestations of Sjögren’s syndrome — dry eyes and dry mouth — are so non-specific,” said Lindsey Criswell, M.D., M.P.H., chief of the UCSF Division of Rheumatology. “In previous years, when those common and non-specific symptoms were part of the classification criteria, some of those patients indeed had Sjögren’s syndrome, but others who met those criteria probably had something else.”

The Sjögren’s International Collaborative Clinical Alliance (SICCA) was created to develop a simpler and more objective criteria set, establishing a universal standard for Sjögren’s syndrome.

“This new criteria set provides more clarity and specificity, which is particularly important for clinical trial enrollment,” said co-lead author Steve Shiboski, Ph.D., professor at the UCSF Division of Biostatistics. “Correct classification of individuals without the disease helps avoid unnecessarily exposing them to potentially toxic side effects of some experimental treatments.”

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UCLA researchers say mothers born in Mexico have healthier pregnancy behaviors, which may account for the reduced risk.

Beate Ritz, UCLA

In a large epidemiologic study, researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center found that babies of U.S.-born Latinas are at higher risk for retinoblastoma — a malignant tumor of the retina which typically occurs before the age of 6 — than children of Mexico-born mothers.

The study, which focused on infants born in California, also found that children of older fathers and those born to women with sexually transmitted diseases were at greater risk for the disease, as were children from multiple-birth pregnancies, which may indicate an increased risk from in vitro fertilization. Those findings confirmed the results of several smaller studies.

The research team used data from the California Cancer Registry and examined all retinoblastoma cases reported from 1988 to 2007, said Julia Heck, first author of the study and an assistant researcher at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Using California data allowed the researchers to cull information from a large and diverse population that included many Latinas.

The study appears in the early online edition of the journal Cancer Causes and Control.

“One of the most interesting things we found in this study that hasn’t been reported is the differences among Latina mothers and the risk being lower among mothers born in Mexico,” Heck said. “We believe this is because women born in Mexico who come to the United States and have children have very healthy behaviors in the perinatal period, immediately before and after giving birth.”

The study’s senior author, Dr. Beate Ritz, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and a professor of epidemiology and environmental health sciences at the Fielding School, said Latinas born in the U.S. are less likely to exhibit the healthy pregnancy behaviors found in foreign-born Latinas. For example, they generally have poorer diets and are more likely to smoke and drink during pregnancy, which could contribute to the risk of retinoblastoma.

“Compared to U.S.-born Latinas, immigrant women born in rural Mexico often have even less education and lower socioeconomic status, but they retain healthier diets and perinatal habits, which may be correlated to lower risk of disease in their children,” said Ritz, who chairs the Fielding School’s epidemiology department.

The team chose to study retinoblastoma because its causes remain poorly understood. The researchers sought to examine associations between perinatal factors and cancer risk in California children. They identified 609 retinoblastoma cases, 420 that occurred in one eye, 187 that occurred in both eyes and two for which it was unknown whether one or both eyes were involved. They randomly selected more than 200,000 control children without cancer from the California birth rolls. The source of most of the risk-factor data in this study was information from birth certificates, Ritz said.

Retinoblastoma is the result of the loss or mutation of both alleles of the RB1 tumor-suppressor gene. About 40 percent of cases are considered hereditary, and most of these present as bilateral disease — that is, in both eyes.

“In conclusion, we observed risk of retinoblastoma to be related to several risk factors,” the study states. “Bilateral disease risk was higher among children of older fathers, and among children of multiple-birth pregnancies. We observed a higher risk of unilateral disease among children of U.S.-born Latina women. Further research should be done to confirm this finding and to examine the unique risks experienced in this population.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R21 ES018960 and R21 ES019986).

UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has more than 240 researchers and clinicians engaged in disease research, prevention, detection, control, treatment and education. One of the nation’s largest comprehensive cancer centers, the Jonsson Center is dedicated to promoting research and translating basic science into leading-edge clinical studies. In July 2012, the Jonsson Cancer Center was named among the top 10 cancer centers nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, a ranking it has held for 12 of the last 13 years.

State-of-the-art vision care center is expected to open next summer.

James Mazzo (left) and Roger Steinert were among the first to memorialize their association with The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute at the topping out ceremony.

A special “topping-out” celebration was held Tuesday, July 24, at the site of UC Irvine’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, acknowledging both the completion of the frame for Orange County’s only academic eye institute and those who are driving the effort.

The 70,000-square-foot facility is being funded entirely through local private philanthropy. To date, UC Irvine Health has raised 75 percent of the $37 million goal for the “Shine the Light” capital campaign and is on schedule to open the institute next summer.

The initial naming gift came from Gavin Herbert, chairman emeritus of Allergan Inc., and his mother, Josephine Gleis, in 2007. “We’re building something special,” he said at the time. “This is something I’ve talked about for more than 30 years, and there’s certainly a need in Orange County for such a center.”

A generous $500,000 donation from philanthropists Kelly and James Mazzo set an upbeat tone at Tuesday’s topping-out ceremony.

“The university is fortunate to have friends like Jim and Kelly Mazzo, who share our vision for Orange County’s only academic eye center as a place where collaborations with local eye companies lead to groundbreaking treatments and outstanding eye care for the community and the world beyond,” said UCI Chancellor Michael Drake.

“As chairman of The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute board,” James Mazzo said, “I take great pride in seeing the completion of the structural frame and in knowing that we will have a world-class eye institute here in Orange County for many years to come.”

Other major supporters have included Abbott Medical Optics, The Allergan Foundation, Julia and George Argyros, the Arnold & Mabel Beckman Foundation, Esther and James H. Cavanaugh, Bill and Marsha Link, and Richard P. Kratz, M.D.

The new eye care facility will include patient exam and waiting areas, the campus’s first outpatient surgery center, an optical shop, faculty offices and conference space. Interior design features recommended by the Braille Institute will make it easier for low-vision patients to navigate within the building.

Roger Steinert, director of The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, shared the center's goal of eliminating blindness by the year 2020.

“With UC Irvine located in the heart of what may be the largest concentration of eye care companies in the world, our ophthalmology group has long dreamed of a place that would allow our patients to benefit from corporate innovation and the pioneering research happening at UC Irvine’s Hewitt Hall and the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center,” said Dr. Roger Steinert, professor and chair of ophthalmology and director of The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute.

“This facility fulfills that dream, providing a state-of-the-art environment in which corporate scientists, researchers and physicians can collaborate on tomorrow’s sight-saving patient care today.”

Nine Gavin Herbert Eye Institute physicians are on the “Best Doctors in America” list compiled by Best Doctors Inc. The team is also recognized for pioneering medical procedures such as refractive surgery using a femtosecond laser rather than a steel blade and a laser-based approach to corneal transplant surgery. Dr. Henry Klassen is investigating stem cell therapies to preserve and restore sight in individuals with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration.

About The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute: The faculty of internationally recognized physicians, surgeons and scientists at The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute and UC Irvine’s Department of Ophthalmology provide highly specialized training to future ophthalmologists, access to leading-edge clinical trials, and sight-saving treatments and therapies for virtually any eye disorder. The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute’s mission is to develop educational programs, technologies and clinical solutions that enhance visual health and performance for people in Orange County, the nation and the world through cooperation with medical professionals, industry and the community.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County’s second-largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $4 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.

The approach could eventually help people with degenerative blindness.

Richard Kramer, UC Berkeley

A team of University of California, Berkeley, scientists in collaboration with researchers at the University of Munich and University of Washington, in Seattle, has discovered a chemical that temporarily restores some vision to blind mice, and is working on an improved compound that may someday allow people with degenerative blindness to see again.

The approach could eventually help those with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disease that is the most common inherited form of blindness, as well as age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of acquired blindness in the developed world. In both diseases, the light sensitive cells in the retina — the rods and cones — die, leaving the eye without functional photoreceptors.

The chemical, called AAQ, acts by making the remaining, normally “blind” cells in the retina sensitive to light, said lead researcher Richard Kramer, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology. AAQ is a photoswitch that binds to protein ion channels on the surface of retinal cells. When switched on by light, AAQ alters the flow of ions through the channels and activates these neurons much the way rods and cones are activated by light.

“This is similar to the way local anesthetics work: they embed themselves in ion channels and stick around for a long time, so that you stay numb for a long time,” Kramer said. “Our molecule is different in that it’s light sensitive, so you can turn it on and off and turn on or off neural activity.”

Because the chemical eventually wears off, it may offer a safer alternative to other experimental approaches for restoring sight, such as gene or stem cell therapies, which permanently change the retina. It is also less invasive than implanting light-sensitive electronic chips in the eye.

“The advantage of this approach is that it is a simple chemical, which means that you can change the dosage, you can use it in combination with other therapies, or you can discontinue the therapy if you don’t like the results. As improved chemicals become available, you could offer them to patients. You can’t do that when you surgically implant a chip or after you genetically modify somebody,” Kramer said.

“This is a major advance in the field of vision restoration,” said co-author Dr. Russell Van Gelder, an ophthalmologist and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Kramer, Van Gelder, chemist Dirk Trauner and their colleagues at UC Berkeley, the University of Washington, Seattle, and the University of Munich will publish their findings Thursday, July 26, in the journal Neuron.

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Device implanted by UC Irvine surgeons restores partial vision.

Implantable mini-telescope

Two UC Irvine ophthalmologists are the first in Orange County to implant a miniature telescope in the eyes of patients with end-stage age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among older Americans. The device restores a portion of vision lost to the disease. UC Irvine’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute is the sole facility in Orange County and among only a few nationwide to offer this new technology.

In December, Dr. Marjan Farid implanted the 4-millimeter telescope in the left eye of an 85-year-old Irvine woman. In May, Dr. Sumit “Sam” Garg implanted the device in a 94-year-old Anaheim resident’s right eye.

“Macular degeneration damages the retina and causes a blind spot in the center of a person’s field of vision,” said Garg, medical director of The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute. “The telescope projects an image onto an undamaged portion of the retina, making it possible for patients to recognize faces, read and perform daily activities.”

Clinical trials demonstrated that the implant, in addition to improved vision, increases patients’ independence. It also aids social interaction by making visible the facial expressions of family and friends.

“Until now, there has been no mechanism, surgical or medical, to restore that central sight,” said Farid, UC Irvine’s director of cornea, cataract and refractive surgery. “These patients are now experiencing a quality of life that they’ve not enjoyed in many years. My patient is seeing her son’s face for the first time in more than a decade.”

The Food & Drug Administration approved the miniature telescope last year for use in patients with irreversible end-stage macular degeneration. At least 15 million Americans are affected by some form of the disease. The implant cost is covered by Medicare. The device is integral to CentraSight, a new patient care program developed by VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies.

In addition to cornea surgeons Garg and Farid, the CentraSight team includes Dr. Baruch Kuppermann and Dr. Stephanie Lu, Gavin Herbert Eye Institute retina experts who coordinate the treatment; and vision specialists at the Mary Ann Keverline Walls Low Vision Center at the Southern California College of Optometry, who handle pre- and postsurgical therapy. Kuppermann conducted trials of the telescope at UC Irvine prior to its FDA approval.

After surgery, implant patients work with the vision specialists to retrain their brain to recognize images projected through the device.

About The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute: The faculty of internationally recognized physicians, surgeons and scientists at The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute and UC Irvine’s Department of Ophthalmology provide highly specialized training to future ophthalmologists, access to leading-edge clinical trials, and sight-saving treatments and therapies for virtually any eye disorder. The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute’s mission is to develop educational programs, technologies and clinical solutions that enhance visual health and performance for people in Orange County, the nation and the world through cooperation with medical professionals, industry and the community.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County’s second-largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $4 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.

UC Santa Cruz’s Alexander Sher researching how the retina heals itself after laser surgery.

Alexander Sher, UC Santa Cruz

The Pew Charitable Trusts has named Alexander Sher, assistant professor of physics at UC Santa Cruz, a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. Sher will receive a $240,000 award over four years to support his research on how the retina heals itself after laser surgery.

Sher applies his background in physics to challenging problems in neurobiology, using custom-designed arrays of microscopic electrodes to probe the simultaneous activity of large numbers of neurons. This system, which he helped develop at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) at UC Santa Cruz, has been used in a number of studies, most recently in the development of a new type of retinal prosthesis for restoring sight to the blind and in fundamental research on the neurological basis of color vision.

The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, identifies and invests in talented researchers in medicine or biomedical sciences. By backing them early in their careers, the program enables promising scientists to take calculated risks and follow unanticipated leads to advance human health. Sher is among 22 innovative young researchers chosen this year from the 134 candidates nominated by invited institutions. He is the fourth UCSC faculty member to receive this prestigious award. This year’s recipients also include Maximiliano D’Angelo, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UC San Francisco, and Wenjun Zhang, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Berkeley.

Sher began his career studying high-energy particle physics. As a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz, working with physicist Alan Litke at SCIPP, he began studying neural networks in the retina. Sher now heads his own research program investigating retinal function and development. The new project funded by his Pew Scholarship will explore how the retina responds to laser photocoagulation. This type of surgery is used to treat a variety of visual disorders, including diabetic retinopathy.

Laser photocoagulation can stave off blindness by intentionally reducing metabolic load in the retina through destruction of a portion of retinal neurons. Unfortunately, this long-established treatment can lead to retinal scarring and side effects such as diminished visual clarity and loss of peripheral vision. Researchers have found that treating the eye with shorter pulses of laser light leads to destruction of photoreceptor cells but leaves the processing and output retinal layers intact. The light-sensitive photoreceptors from adjacent areas then shift to fill in the regions in which these cells were destroyed. The process reduces the number of photoreceptors (the treatment’s goal), but avoids retinal scarring that might follow more intense conventional laser burns. Sher has determined that the migrating photoreceptors are able to establish functional connections with retinal neurons that had previously been connected to the destroyed photoreceptors.

“We showed that healthy photoreceptors move in and connect to the orphaned inner-retinal neurons. This constructive neuroplasticity is not only exciting on a basic science level, it also has implications for treatment,” Sher said.

Using the novel electrode recording system he helped develop, Sher plans to monitor the simultaneous activity of hundreds of neurons in laser-treated retinal tissue to determine whether the restored circuits are fully functional and able to engage in various forms of visual processing, such as detecting spatial patterns and color. This work could lead to deeper understanding of retinal plasticity and improvements in the treatment of a variety of retinal diseases.

Sher is also involved in the development of a new type of retinal prosthesis designed to restore sight to people with diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration, which cause blindness due to degenerated photoreceptors. In his lab at UCSC, Sher demonstrated the feasibility of the new prosthesis design, which relies on photovoltaic retinal stimulation and was developed by his collaborators at Stanford University. These results were published May 13 in Nature Photonics.

In another recent paper, published May 27 in Nature Neuroscience, Sher presented new findings on color vision. This paper shows that color vision in the retinas of mammals relies on unconventional neural circuitry to discriminate between blue and green colors. This research required reliable observations of an elusive retinal pathway that responds to decreases in the amount of blue light–observations made possible by Sher’s multielectrode recording techniques.

Launched in 1985, the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences has awarded more than $130 million in funding to over 500 Pew Scholars. The 2012 class of scholars is exploring a range of human health issues from antibiotic-resistant infections to liver disease and cancer.