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Boston's Dr. Grosskreutz awarded glaucoma prize
New York-Cynthia L. Grosskreutz, MD, PhD, co-director of Glaucoma Service, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, and assistant professor of ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, received the New York Academy of Medicine's 2006 Lewis Rudini Glaucoma Prize for the discovery of an enzyme that contributes to nerve cell death in the eye in glaucoma.
New York-Cynthia L. Grosskreutz, MD, PhD, co-director of Glaucoma Service, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, and assistant professor of ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, received the New York Academy of Medicine's 2006 Lewis Rudini Glaucoma Prize for the discovery of an enzyme that contributes to nerve cell death in the eye in glaucoma.
The New York Academy of Medicine awards $50,000 to the person who had the most significant glaucoma research published in a peer-reviewed journal during the prior calendar year. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences printed Dr. Grosskreutz's work, "Calcineurin cleavage is triggered by elevated IOP, and calcineurin inhibition blocks retinal ganglion cell death in experimental glaucoma," in August 2005.
Dr. Grosskreutz and her team found that calcineurin becomes over-activated in rats that experience elevated IOP. After discovering the role of calcineurin, the team successfully treated the rats with the drug FK506, which inhibited the enzyme and thereby prevented the death of retinal ganglion cells.
