Since our initial Core Grant award in 1997 and its renewals in 2002 and 2007, this grant has played a major role in the growth of individual investigator programs, inter-departmental collaborations, and recruitment of new investigators to the visual sciences from external universities and from other departments at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). The 2007-2012 funding cycle of the CWRU Visual Sciences Research Center (VSRC) Core Grant generated 105 publications in the areas of: 1) retinal biology and retinal degenerative and hereditary diseases; 2) ocular diseases as a consequence of aging and diabetes; and 3) ocular immunology, inflammation and infectious diseases. In the current renewal, there are 11 investigators with 16 active NEI R01 grants in the Departments of Pharmacology (Palczewski, Imanishi, von Lintig), Medicine (Kern, Subauste), Chemistry (Salomon), Ophthalmology (Park, Pearlman), Pathology (Monnier), and Pediatrics (Gubitosi-Klug). There are 2 additional ROIs with very competitive scores, but have not been funded at the time of submission (Reitsch, Microbiology, and Pikuleva, Ophthalmology) and another 6 VSRC investigators with non-R01 NEI funding or no-cost extensions who utilize the Core Modules. Institutional commitment to the VSRC has been and continues to be very strong in terms of renovations, recruitment and salary support for the module managers. The modules in the 2007-2012 funding period were: 1) Tissue Culture and Hybridoma, 2) Histology, Microscopy and Imaging, 3) Molecular Biology, 4) Specialized Animal Resource, and 5) Proteomics. The two major changes to the modules in the current submission are: first, we have expanded the Specialized Animal Resource to include a small animal visual function and non-invasive retinal imaging sub-module. This sub-module will provide expertise in and use of two electroretinograms (ERG), two Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopes, and Optical Coherence Tomography equipment, and an Optomotor that records eye movement. Second, we are not requesting renewal of the Proteomics module. Although this module was heavily utilized, it was mostly by two or three investigators; however, all of the Proteomics services remain available.
The P-30 grant provides essential technical, equipment and service support for 11 NEI funded investigators who study blinding diseases of the cornea, lens and retina of the mammalian eye. By providing these critical functions, the grant will greatly enhance the ability of these investigators to understand these diseases and can develop new therapies for corneal infections, cataract, diabetes and retinal degenerative diseases.
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