Marty McGuinn, a longtime Eye & Ear Foundation donor and Pittsburgh dignitary, passed away in May.
The former Chairman and CEO of Mellon Financial Corporation leaves a lasting impact on the condition he was passionate about supporting: retinitis pigmentosa (RP). When Dr. José-Alain Sahel became the Department of Ophthalmology Chair at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Marty was one of the first to reach out to Lawton Snyder, EEF CEO, to set up an appointment to meet him.
Marty’s interest was personal. When his son Patrick married Ilana, whose family carries the RP gene, Marty began engaging with EEF to learn more. As Heather Chronis Danek, EEF Senior Director of Development for Individual Giving and Corporate Partnerships, recalled, he “approached supporting retinitis pigmentosa research the same way he has approached every major decision in his life – with careful thought and consideration, extensive research, and, finally, with a whole-hearted commitment to move forward.”
This meant establishing the Martin McGuinn Retina Research Fellowship in 2018, the first of its kind at the University of Pittsburgh. The fellowship has a primary focus on RP, and includes advanced imaging, gene analysis and development of novel therapies that are complementary to each other, with the potential to enhance the desired outcome of restoring visual function in patients with retinal diseases and specifically RP. The Research Fellow is involved in all aspects of the project and works closely with a large research team in Pittsburgh and abroad.
Since then, with the creation of the UPMC Vision Institute and the incredible team that Dr. Sahel has built, much has been accomplished. A landmark trial of the PRIMA wireless retinal implant may be for advanced AMD, but it is part of the same system that is relevant to RP. The Department now has adaptive optics and advanced ophthalmic imaging to track progression of retinal diseases and evaluate new treatments – tools that are now routinely applied to IRDs like RP to measure subtle structural change and treatment response.
A recent exciting development is a 2026 preprint on retinal remodeling in RP that identified the P2X7 receptor as a potential therapeutic target to preserve useful vision in RP.
A generous philanthropist, Marty’s support and appreciation of EEF and the Vision Institute has indeed left quite a legacy.