This application is for continued core support of a Vision Science Research Center located in the School of Optometry, University of Alabama in Birmingham. The requested funds would provide support personnel, equipment, and supplies for five research support modules shared by a group of twenty-one vision scientists. The support modules are I-Center Administration, II-Electronics, III-Tissue Processing Module, IV-Data Management and Analysis (Computer), and V-Illustration and Graphics. Fourteen of the participants in the center have faculty appointments in either the Department of Physiological Optics or the Department of Optometry, both in the School of Optometry. The remaining seven participants have faculty appointments in either the Departments of Anatomy, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Physiology, or Psychology. The center is an administrative subunit of the Department of Physiological Optics and the Center Director, along with the four Module Directors, are responsible for the administration of the Center's activities. The major research focus of the center is neurobiology, with almost half of the Center's participants actively involved in anatomical, physiological, and psychophysical studies of the visual system. Other areas of emphasis are corneal biochemistry and physiology, ocular pharmacology, photochemistry, epidemiology of refractive error, and visual optics. In addition to the existing CORE support, the continued development and growth of the Vision Research Center is supported by faculty salaries from the various departments involved, and by research support services, equipment and facilities provided by individual departments and the university as a whole. The continued CORE support requested in this application provides shared resources not available through other funding mechanisms. These shared facilities increase the efficiency and productivity of research efforts on individually funded projects, afford participants more flexibility in taking new research directions, and promote more collaborative research among a group having multidisciplinary approaches to vision science.
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