Distinguished Lecture Series

Dr. Maria Grant is the Eivor and Alston Callahan, M.D., Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology and Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. Most recently, she has worked on understanding the interactions between the gut microbiome, plasma microbiome, and bacterial derived peptides and metabolites on diseases of the eye and on pathogenesis of severe COVID infection.

Dr. Michael Fautsch is the Joseph E. and Rose Marie Green Professor of Visual Sciences, 2020 and Research Chair, Department of Ophthalmology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. His laboratory team is identifying new therapeutic targets and developing novel therapeutics to regulate pressure and preserve the function of the optic nerve, the ultimate site of eye damage leading to vision loss in glaucoma.

Dr. Maya Koronyo-Hamaoui is Professor of Neurosurgery and Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles. Her primary research focus is on early diagnosis and immune-based therapies for Alzheimer's disease (AD). The Koronyo-Hamaoui Laboratory has shown that the hallmark pathology of AD, amyloid-β protein (Aβ) plaque, is present in the retina of human patients beginning at early stages. A unique approach has been developed in her lab to detect plaques in the retina of live rodent models by a noninvasive optical retinal imaging. This innovation unveils new possibilities for investigation of Alzheimer's pathology in the retina. It may also facilitate early diagnosis and noninvasive monitoring of disease progression.