Dr. Yi-Rong Peng from the Stein Eye Institute, UCLA Awarded $70,000 Grant for Foveal Development Research

Dr. Yi-Rong Peng from the Stein Eye Institute, University of California, Los Angeles was awarded a $70,000 grant for his research entitled: Transcriptomic and Genetic Dissection of Foveal Formation and Malformation

Pediatric eye diseases are complex conditions that impact visual development. In some cases, vision can be rescued through early diagnostics, preventative measures, or surgery. However, in other cases, these diseases can lead to legal blindness.

For example, Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is the second leading cause of childhood blindness in the United States. ROP causes the abnormal development of retinal vascular vessels in premature babies and affects the development of the retina. Many ROP patients develop low visual acuity and present abnormalities in their fovea. The fovea is a specialized retinal area that enables high-acuity vision, and we use it to detect fine spatial details and colors. In mammals, only humans and some primates have a fovea, but we know relatively little about how the fovea is formed.

There is a need for more knowledge about how foveal development is affected in pediatric eye conditions. This project uses cutting-edge, next-generation, sequencing methods to generate a molecular map of the developing fovea. Using big-data analysis, Dr. Peng’s team will mine their datasets to identify the mechanisms associated with the malformation of the fovea and advance the future pathogenetic study of pediatric eye diseases