The E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, Inc. has awarded a grant totaling $240,000 to Yingbin Fu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at John A. Moran Eye Center, University of Utah. More information about Dr. Fu is available in Grant Recipients section.

The E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, Inc. has awarded two more grants totaling $480,000 to Michael R. Taylor, PhD, Assistant Member, Chemical Biology & Therapeutics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Jun Yang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the John A. Moran Center, University of Utah School of Medicine.

Darien, CT, September 2010 – The E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, Inc. announced the four grant recipient winners of $960,000 for basic research into blinding eye diseases. The awards are each $80,000 a year for three years.

Four award recipients were selected from an invited group of 24 candidates. Two of the universities are getting this award for the first time: University of Alabama and University of Wisconsin.

This year’s award recipients are Stephen A. Baccus, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA for “Understanding Computation in the Interneuron Population of the Retina Using Simultaneous Multi-photon Imaging and Multi-electrode Recording”; David M. Gamm, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI for “The Role of MITF in Early Retinal Fate Determination in Human Embryonic Stem Cells”; Alecia Gross, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Vision Sciences at University of Alabama at Birmingham for “Rhodopsin Trafficking in Transgenic Tadpoles; and Andrew Huberman, Assistant Professor, Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego, CA, for “Molecular Determinants of Synaptic Target Choice in the Developing Visual System”.

The E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, Inc. was founded in New York City in 1907 by Electa Matilda Ziegler (1841-1932), the mother of a blind son. Members of the Ziegler and Steinkraus families continue to run the Foundation, located in Darien, CT. In 1985, the Foundation expanded its focus to an invitational grants program for basic research in vision, forming a Scientific Advisory Committee of prominent scientists in vision research led by Professor Marvin Sears, M.D, founder and former chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Yale School of Medicine. The Committee searches world wide for scientists, invites candidates, reviews research proposals, and presents the selected winners to the directors of the Foundation. The Foundation plays an important role in advancing scientific research for the amelioration of the condition of the blind.