Medical College of Wisconsin Receives $2.9 Million CORE Grant for Vision Research

The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) received a five-year, $2.9 million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Eye Institute to support MCW’s research programs at the Froedtert & The Medical College Eye Institute. The CORE Grant for Vision Research has been continuously funded for 35 years.

Janice M. Burke, Ph.D., the Marjorie and Joseph Heil Professor of Ophthalmology, is the principal investigator of the grant.

The research supported by the grant contributes to new knowledge about the development and function of tissues of the eye and for the prevention and treatment of eye disorders, including common eye diseases such as macular degeneration.

The grant supports four shared-use resource modules to assist faculty scientists located at the Eye Institute and elsewhere on campus with their studies of the eye and visual systems of the brain. Dr. Burke is the director of the Cell Culture Module, which grows cultured cells and cell lines for distribution to investigators both within and outside of MCW. Dr. Brian Link, professor of cell biology, neurobiology and anatomy, directs the Core Morphology & Microscopic Imaging Module. Drs. William J. O’Brien, professor of ophthalmology, and Sally Twining, professor of biochemistry, run the Biochemistry-Molecular Biology Module. Dr. Joseph Carroll, associate professor of ophthalmology, oversees the Core Engineering & Translational Imaging Module, which provides engineering support to develop novel imaging technologies to study animal and human eyes.

Scientists in a variety of other departments at MCW, including the departments of anesthesiology, biochemistry, biophysics, pediatrics, radiology, and cell biology, neurobiology & anatomy, also utilize the Core Modules for their studies of the eye and visual system.