Project Grant HT94252510360

The National Eye Institute (NEI) awarded a $332,179 Project Grant under CFDA 93.867 (Vision Research) to Diopter Technologies, Inc. to develop a sustained-release cysteamine-delivering contact lens to treat the ocular complications of cystinosis. The goal is to replace the current 8-times daily eye drop regimen with a single-use daily disposable contact lens that can deliver the same therapeutic dose of cysteamine over 8 hours. The proposed research will focus on GMP manufacturing and 1-year...

The National Eye Institute (NEI) awarded a $257,785 Project Grant (CFDA 93.867 - Vision Research) to The Leland Stanford Junior University to develop a refillable micromachined lens capsule-based drug delivery device. The goal is to enable extended delivery of biologics, such as adalimumab, and immune-modulating peptides to treat non-infectious uveitis without the side effects of steroids. The research will characterize the release of adalimumab via diffusion and the cell-based production and...

The National Eye Institute (NEI), through its Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), has awarded a $816,750 Project Grant to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to pilot test a novel wavelength-based method to control childhood myopia. The two-year project aims to determine the efficacy of amber contact lens wear for up to four hours per day in slowing myopia progression and axial elongation in 40 myopic children aged 8 to 12. This "proof-of-concept" study will test the...

This federal Project Grant award of $256,296 from the National Eye Institute (NEI) under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) aims to develop and validate a new optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) technology that can expand the depth range for imaging retinal microvasculature. The proposed work involves developing a high-speed adaptive ranging OCTA system leveraging integrated photonic components to improve the visualization of the peripheral retinal microvasculature, which is...

This federal Project Grant award from the National Eye Institute (NEI), under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), provides $933,533 to Revopsis Therapeutics, Inc. to conduct preclinical studies on their first-in-class trispecific surrobody therapy, RO-104. RO-104 is designed to target three key angiogenic factors - VEGF-A, VEGF-C, and Ang-2 - for the treatment of retinal diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and retinal vein occlusion. The funding...

This Project Grant award of $285,504 from the National Eye Institute (CFDA 93.867 Vision Research) will fund research to develop a novel combined optical coherence elastography (OCE) and Brillouin microscopy system. The objective is to quantitatively evaluate the depth-dependent biomechanical properties of the human lens in vivo, which is critical for understanding and treating presbyopia. The research will validate the system's performance in ex-vivo porcine lenses and then test it for...

This federal Project Grant award from the National Eye Institute (NEI) under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) provides $431,750 to the University of California, Irvine to develop a novel, femtosecond laser-based approach for corneal gene delivery. The project aims to create microchannels through the corneal epithelium to enhance transepithelial diffusion of therapeutic agents without long-term damage. Additionally, the researchers will investigate the use of subthreshold laser pulses to...

The National Eye Institute (NEI) awarded a $2,174,069 Project Grant under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to study the regenerative potential of the corneal endothelium and develop innovative mRNA-based therapies for Fuchs' Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD). The project aims to elucidate the mechanisms regulating corneal endothelial cell proliferation, with the goal of stimulating in vivo regeneration of the corneal endothelium to...

This Project Grant award from the National Eye Institute (NEI), under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), provides $306,462 to Ifocus Imaging LLC to develop a software platform, OCT-ART-DR, that will automate the diagnosis and staging of diabetic retinopathy (DR) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) imaging and artificial intelligence. The key products to be delivered under this award include: Improved AI-based segmentation of OCTA image features relevant to DR, such as...

This $670,496 Project Grant awarded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) supports research to investigate the paradoxical role of anti-VEGF therapy in the development of subretinal fibrosis (scarring) in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD). The research aims to: Investigate the effects of anti-VEGF therapy at early versus late stages of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) on subretinal fibrosis development in animal models....