Welcome to the Center For Vision Research
About Us
The Center for Vision Research represents a consortium of vision scientists from both basic science and clinical departments within The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and from other local institutions as well as clinicians in private practice. This broad and diverse group provides a rich environment in which research efforts are flourishing. The purpose of the Center is to recognize, support, and expand the efforts of individual vision researchers and provide a structure to facilitate collaborations among basic and clinical investigators. The Center’s goal is to integrate research efforts and bring together both basic and clinical aspects of vision science.
FY02-03 marks the Center for Vision Research’s sixth year as a multidisciplinary research program in vision science. As the first of its kind in Tennessee, the Center for Vision Research has been strengthened by the interdepartmental nature of the program and the multidisciplinary approach to research in vision science. In FY97-98, Chancellor William R. Rice established the Center for Vision Research.
The Institute comprises 44 members: Colleges of Medicine (27), Southern College of Optometry (2), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (4), Charles Retina Institute (1), Vitreoretinal Foundation (1), Independent Ophthalmic Consultant (2), Memphis Eye and Cataract Associates (1), Methodist Healthcare (1), UT Medical Group Department of Pediatrics (1), Pharmaceutical Sciences (1), and various doctors in the community (3). The 44 members are established scientists and clinicians in the field of vision science.
Of the 27 members in the College of Medicine, 9 are in one of five basic science departments (Anatomy and Neurobiology, Molecular Sciences, Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Physiology, and Pharmaceutical Sciences) and 18 are in one of five clinical departments (Medicine, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Ophthalmology, and Pathology).
The 44 members of the Center for Vision Research have interests in the following areas: mechanisms of ganglion cell death, mechanisms of age-related and proliferative retinal disease, clinical and epidemiologic studies of age-related macular degeneration, retinal surgery, corneal infectious disease and pathology, neuro-ophthalmology, role of corpus callosum and molecular and genetic mechanisms in central visual development, amblyopia, fetal alcohol syndrome, vitreous and surgical intervention, low vision, proliferative and angiogenic ocular and hereditary eye diseases, cystoid macular edema, metalloproteinases, electrophysiology of vision, differentiation of photoreceptors and outer segment membrane assembly, lens biochemistry and disease, diabetes and cataracts, retinal anatomy, neurotransmitters, fat adherence syndrome and orbital surgery, growth factors and wound healing, eye movement disorders, sensory adaptation to strabismus and amblyopia, neural control of choroidal blood flow in eye and retinal ischemia, limbal stem cell transplantation, veterinary ophthalmology, visual psychophysics, pathophysiological mechanisms in the involvement of RPE, visual attention, spatial vision, glaucoma and glaucoma surgery, cytokine expression in experimental autoimmune uveitis immunopathogenesis, therapy in ocular graft versus host disease, corneal cell ion channels, genetic control of visual system development, retinoblastoma, delivery of chemotherapy, diagnostic imaging of ophthalmic tumors, high-resolution ultrasound imaging of anterior segment abnormalities, epidemiology of glaucoma, neurodegeneration in mutant mice, and functions of hair cells in mouse inner ear.
Some benefits of the Center structure include exposure to undergraduate students from several nearby undergraduate institutions, exchange of research ideas with scientists from other disciplines, and integration of ideas from both basic and clinical perspectives.
Since 1997, the participating faculty has received substantial federal funding (e.g., National Institutes of Health, National Eye Institute) and private foundation funding (e.g., Plough Foundation Professorship, Research to Prevent Blindness, Mid-South and Downtown Lions Clubs and the International Lions Foundation, Richard Siegal Professorship and Grant Support, Federal Express, CIBA Vision, and private donations) to support their research and training.
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