The Eye & Ear Foundation is excited to announce the 2020’s Wiegand Fellowship in Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh and the Bruce and Barbara Wiegand Entrepreneurial Research Award recipients.
Wiegand Fellowship in Ophthalmology
The Wiegand Fellowship in Ophthalmology, established in 2013, thanks to the generosity of Bruce and Barbara Wiegand and their family foundation. This fellowship was created to provide income annually for the partial support of a research Fellowship or Assistant Professorship in Imaging for Regenerative Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The 2020 winner is Lyndsay Leach, PhD. Dr. Leach began her postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh in Dr. Jeffrey Gross’ Laboratory, where research is focused on understanding ocular development and regeneration using the zebrafish as a model system. Dr. Leach’s current and future research is aimed toward using the strengths of the zebrafish for live imaging to better understand how the retinal pigment epithelium regenerates after injury. When not in the lab, Dr. Leach is an avid runner and says some of her best research ideas occur while running the Three Rivers Heritage Trail.
Bruce and Barbara Wiegand Entrepreneurial Research Award
The Wiegand’s also created the Bruce and Barbara Wiegand Entrepreneurial Research Award in 2018 to provide support in the form of grants for pre-clinical research that has the opportunity for commercialization, at the University of Pittsburgh Departments of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology. Additionally, the Wiegand’s have generously agreed to match any contributions made to the Entrepreneurial Research Award fund up to $200,000.
The 2020 winner is Yuanyuan Chen, PhD. Dr. Chen joined the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2017 and is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology. Her research interests are focused on the molecular mechanism of photoreceptor cell death in retinal diseases, as well as pharmacological treatments of such blinding diseases. Aside from the Wiegand Entrepreneurial Research Award, her research project has received several other grants and awards, including the highly competitive K99/R00 path to Independence Research Award from the National Eye Institute.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Leach and Dr. Chen for this impressive accomplishment!
If you would like to support research like this and make a matched contribution to the Wiegand Entrepreneurial Research Award fund, please donate now.