ARVO announces 2023 recipient of Genentech Career Development Award for Underrepresented Minority Emerging Vision Scientists

Winners receive a two-year grant totaling $100,000 to support research and personnel costs for establishing an independent vision research program.

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) announced the recipient of its Genentech Career Development Award for Underrepresented Minority (URM) Emerging Vision Scientists recently.

According to an ARVO news release, Edmund Arthur, OD, PhD, will receive a two-year grant totaling $100,000 to support research and personnel costs for establishing an independent vision research program.

Arthur, an optometrist and a vision scientist, is currently an assistant professor of optometry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In the ARVO release, it is stated Arthur will use this grant to investigate a novel retinal vascular biomarker for early diabetic retinopathy (DR) detection and disease monitoring known as the peripheral capillary free zones.

"This award provides critical support for my research career," Arthur said in the ARVO release. "The data from this two-year pilot study will inform several future research projects in diabetic retinopathy (DR) and diabetic macular edema (DME) in my lab." In the release, Arthur went into further detail on the study stating, "This will be a three-year cross-sectional study aimed at developing a biological variable model that includes ethnicity, HbA1c, age, and sex in screening for individuals at risk of worse diabetes associated retinal neurodegeneration in underserved populations."

According to ARVO, as part of the award, Arthur will also be matched with a mentor outside of his home institution to provide support for his career advancement.

ARVO is the largest eye and vision research organization in the world with members from approximately 10,000 eye and vision researchers from over 75 countries. For more information on the ARVO Genentech Career Development Award for Underrepresented Minority (URM) Emerging Vision Scientists, visit ARVO’s website.