Moran Eye Center Researcher Dr. Yingbin Fu Receives $200,000 Career Development Award from Research to Prevent Blindness

Salt Lake City, Utah
July 3, 2008

John A. Moran Eye Center researcher and Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Utah, Yingbin Fu, Ph.D., has been granted a $200,000 Career Development Award from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) to support eye research. The grant, given to the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, will support Dr. Fu's vision research projects over a four-year period.

The RPB Research Career Development Award Fund was established in 1990 to attract young physicians and basic scientists like Dr. Fu to eye research. To date, the program has recruited 139 vision scientists to research positions in departments of ophthalmology at universities across the country. This marks the sixth time the University of Utah Health Sciences Center has received a Career Development Award.

Randall J Olson, M.D., CEO John A. Moran Eye Center and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Utah, said this about this RPB Award: "Dr. Fu has made significant discoveries about the role of visual pigments in image and non-image-forming vision. His expertise in biochemistry, molecular biology, and visual neurophysiology has placed him in a unique position to carry out research on Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of visual impairment and blindness in the United States. This year Dr. Fu's study, 'Quantal noise from human red cone pigment," was published in the prestigious journal, Nature Neuroscience. This Career Development Award from Research to Prevent Blindness will help further research that may one day lead to treatments and cures for blinding eye diseases."

RPB is the worlds leading voluntary organization supporting eye research. Since it was founded in 1960, RPB has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to medical institutions for research into the causes, treatment and prevention of blinding eye diseases.

For information on RPB, please go to www.rpbusa.org. For more information about Dr. Fu and his research laboratory at the Moran Eye Center, please call Steve Brown, Moran Eye Center Communications at 801-587-7693, or go to www.moraneyecenter.com.

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