BrightFocus Foundation Awards Nearly $13M to 50 Scientists for Alzheimer's, Macular Degeneration, and Glaucoma Research
New grant funding supports cutting-edge scientific ideas across risk reduction, earlier detection, and new treatments for diseases of mind and sight.
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CLARKSBURG, Md. — Private research nonprofit BrightFocus Foundation today announced nearly $13 million in grants to support early investigative research into Alzheimer's disease, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. This includes $7.3 million to its Alzheimer's Disease Research program, $3.8 million to its Macular Degeneration Research program, and $1.8 million to its National Glaucoma Research program.
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'With recent major cuts to federal research funding, private foundations like BrightFocus are more essential than ever—stepping up to keep promising research alive, nurture early-career scientists, and accelerate breakthroughs.'
Guided by scientific advisory committees of world-renowned researchers in the field, BrightFocus invests in highly innovative, experimental research and creative ideas with the most promise to foster a better understanding of disease onset, improve early detection and diagnosis, develop new treatments, and—ultimately—lead to cures. This year's grants were awarded to scientists in 10 countries including the U.S.
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'This year's grant awards represent some of the boldest, most cutting-edge ideas in vision and brain health research,' said BrightFocus President and CEO Stacy Pagos Haller. 'With recent major cuts to federal research funding, private foundations like BrightFocus are more essential than ever—stepping up to keep promising research alive, nurture early-career scientists, and accelerate breakthroughs.'
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BrightFocus Foundation's research programs are supported entirely by private donor contributions from the public and corporate and foundation grants; BrightFocus receives no government funding. Learn more about how to support our work.
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A complete list of the new research projects will be available this summer on BrightFocus' website, with additional details forthcoming upon the completion of individual agreements with the partnering institutions and scientists.
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Over 7 million Americans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's disease, a progressive, terminal brain disorder that has no known cause or cure. Unless scientists can unlock the secrets of this disease, the number of cases is expected to triple by the year 2050. Grant recipients are studying a range of approaches spanning different areas of the brain and body to better understand the disease's onset and progression.
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Alzheimer's Disease Research grant recipients:
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Katerina Akassoglou, PhD
The J. David Gladstone Institutes
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Federica Anastasi, PhD
Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (Spain)
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Isabelle Aubert, PhD
Sunnybrook Research Institute (Canada)
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Daniel Bos, MD, PhD
Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam (Netherlands)
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Todd J. Cohen, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Joshua Emmerson, PhD
Washington University in St. Louis
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Ghazaleh Eskandari-Sedighi, PhD
University of California, Irvine
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Anllely Fernandez, PhD
Indiana University
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Hongjun Fu, PhD
The Ohio State University
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Laura Fumagalli, PhD
Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (Belgium)
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John Hardy, PhD, FRS
University College London (U.K.)
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Joseph Herdy, PhD
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
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Sarah Elise Heuer, PhD
Brigham and Women's Hospital
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Jack Humphrey, PhD
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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Ksenia Kastanenka, PhD
Massachusetts General Hospital
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Jr-Jiun Liou, PhD
University of Pittsburgh
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Jae-eun Miller, PhD
Columbia University
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Miguel Moutinho, PharmD, PhD
Indiana University
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Carolina Ochoa-Rosales, PhD
Adolfo Ibáñez University (Chile)
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Omar Peña-Ramos, PhD
Baylor College of Medicine
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Cyril Pottier, PhD
Washington University in St. Louis
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Marcos Schaan Profes, PhD
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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Nader Saffari, PhD, MSc, BSc
University College London (U.K.)
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Monica Santisteban, PhD
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
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Feng Tian, PhD
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
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Rebecca Wallings, DPhil
Indiana University
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Justyna Dobrowolska Zakaria, PhD
Northwestern University – Chicago Campus
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Damian Zuloaga, PhD
University at Albany
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Macular Degeneration Research
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Twenty million U.S. adults have macular degeneration—the leading cause of vision loss in Americans aged 65 and older. Early detection and treatment are crucial to slowing the disease progression and preventing permanent vision loss. Grant recipients are exploring a wide range of innovative scientific approaches, from exploring ways to regenerate damaged cells to determining the influence of early-life events and lifestyle factors on disease risk.
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Macular Degeneration Research grant recipients:
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Mohajeet Balveer Bhuckory, PhD
Stanford University School of Medicine
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Ana J. Chucair-Elliott, PhD
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
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Charles DeBoer, MD, PhD
Stanford University School of Medicine
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Ashley Farre, PhD
University of Idaho
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Valencia Fernandes, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
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Masayuki Hata, MD, PhD
Kyoto University (Japan)
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Ruchi Sharma, PhD
National Eye Institute, NIH
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Nobuhiko Shiraki, PhD
Duke University School of Medicine
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Daisy Yao Shu, PhD
University of New South Wales (Australia)
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Jerzy Szablowski, PhD
William Marsh Rice University
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Amir Mani Varnoosfaderani, PhD
University of Chicago
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Joëlle Elise Vergroesen, PhD
Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam (Netherlands)
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National Glaucoma Research
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Around 4 million U.S. adults have glaucoma—a leading cause of blindness in the U.S. caused by damage to the optic nerve. Because there are often no early symptoms, as many as half of those affected may not even know they have it until irreversible vision loss has occurred. Although there is no cure, early detection and treatments can help slow the disease's progression.
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Grant recipients are investigating a wide range of scientific approaches, including novel treatments, early detection methods, and efforts to protect and regenerate retinal ganglion cells that could preserve or restore vision.
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National Glaucoma Research grant recipients:
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Brad Fortune, OD, PhD
Legacy Research Institute
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Tatjana Jakobs, MD
Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass. Eye and Ear
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Colleen McDowell, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Rob Nickells, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Gavin Roddy, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic, Rochester
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Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk, PhD
University of California, Irvine
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Dan Stamer, PhD
Duke University
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Karl Wahlin, PhD
University of California, San Diego – Health Sciences
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Pete Williams, PhD
Karolinska Institute (Sweden)
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Benjamin Xu, MD, PhD
University of Southern California
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BrightFocus encourages researchers with groundbreaking ideas to apply for a 2026 grant. Application information is available at brightfocus.org/apply.
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BrightFocus Foundation is a premier global nonprofit funder of research to defeat Alzheimer's, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. Through its flagship research programs — Alzheimer's Disease Research, Macular Degeneration Research, and National Glaucoma Research— the Foundation has awarded over $300 million in groundbreaking research funding since its inception in 1973 and shares the latest research findings, expert information, and resources to empower the millions impacted by these devastating diseases. Learn more at brightfocus.org.
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She uses diamonds as an analogy: Natural diamonds and their commercially lab-grown equivalents are made from the same chemical components, but society assigns them different values. She cautioned there shouldn't be a rush to regulate embryo models too quickly in case it shuts down promising research. 'We are at an early stage in their development, where it could be that in 5, 10, 15, 20 years, that they could look very like a human embryo, or it might be they never get to that stage,' she said. Embryo Scientists Scientists look at a model of an early-stage human embryo created by Israeli scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, September 7, 2023. (Amir Cohen/Reuters via CNN Newsource) A 'Turing test' for embryo models As the scientific research unfolds, oversight of embryo models is taking different shapes in different jurisdictions. Australia has taken the strictest approach. It includes embryo models within the regulatory framework that governs the use of human embryos, requiring a special permit for research. The Netherlands in 2023 similarly proposed treating 'non-conventional embryos' the same as human embryos in the eyes of the law. The proposal is still under discussion, according to the Health Council of the Netherlands. Researchers in the United Kingdom released a voluntary code of conduct in 2024, and Japan has also issued new guidelines governing research in the field. In the United States, embryo models aren't covered by any specific legal framework, and research proposals are considered by individual institutions and funding bodies, Clark noted. The National Institutes of Health said in 2021 that it would consider applications for public funding of research into embryo models on a case-by-case basis and monitor developments to understand the capabilities of these models. Few other countries, however, appear poised to adopt specific legislation on embryo models, making the guidelines issued by the ISSCR a 'highly influential' reference for researchers around the world, according to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a London-based organization that advises on ethical issues in biomedicine. The council said in a November 2024 report that international guidelines were key to avoid 'research being carried out that does not meet high ethical and scientific standards; this in turn could impact on the national public perception of risk, leading to a more risk-averse approach that hinders responsible scientific development.' Clark said the ISSCR's updated voluntary guidelines would help scientific funding bodies around the world better evaluate applications and publishers of research understand whether work was performed in an ethically responsible way, particularly in places where the law or other guidelines don't take embryo models into account. The future challenge for regulators is to understand when and whether an embryo model would be functionally the same as a human embryo and therefore potentially afforded the same or similar protection as those surrounding human embryos, said Naomi Moris, group leader at The Francis Crick Institute's developmental models laboratory. The only definitive test would be to transfer the model into the uterus of a surrogate, a move that's forbidden by current bioethical standards. However, Moris is among a group of researchers that has proposed to two tipping points or 'Turing tests' — inspired by computer scientist Alan Turing's way of determining whether machines can think like humans — to evaluate when distinctions between a lab-gown model and a human embryo would disappear. 'These things are not embryos at the moment, they clearly don't have the same capacity as an embryo does. But how would we know ahead of time that we were approaching that?' Moris said. 'That was the logic behind it. What metrics would we use as a kind of proxy for the potential of an embryo model that might then suggest that it was at least approaching the same sorts of equivalency as an embryo.' The first test would measure whether the models can be consistently produced and faithfully develop over a given period as normal embryos would. The second test would assess when animal stem cell embryo models — particularly animals closest to humans such as monkeys — show the potential to form living and fertile animals when transferred into surrogate animal wombs, thus suggesting that the same outcome would in theory be possible for human embryo models. That hasn't happened yet, but Chinese researchers in 2023 created embryo models from the stem cells of macaque monkeys that when implanted in a surrogate monkey triggered signs of early pregnancy. Embryo ethics: A delicate dance Proponents of the technology say the models offer an equally, and possibly more, useful, ethical alternative to research on scarce and precious human embryos. The models have the potential to be produced at scale in a lab to screen drugs for embryo toxicology, a impactful application given that pregnant women have often been excluded from drug trials because of safety concerns. Lab based embryo models A 3D-printed replica of a human embryo model on display as part of an exhibit by The Francis Crick Institute at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition in London earlier this month. The replica is about 500 times bigger than the actual embryo model, which was 0.3 millimeters. (Stephen Potvin via CNN Newsource) Yet, the potential for these models to be used in the creation of life has been cause for worry among bioethicists. 'There are commercial and other groups raising the possibility of building an embryo in vitro and combining different bioengineering approaches to bring such an entity to viability,' according to the June paper coauthored by Clark and other members of the ISSCR's embryo model working group. 'Currently the practice of bringing an SCBEM (stem cell-based embryo model) to viability is considered unsafe and unethical and should not be pursued,' the study noted. Cave said ectogenesis may sound like the realm of science fiction, but it isn't impossible. As embryo models continue to be developed, and separate research is advancing into artificial wombs, the two technologies could meet, Cave said. The challenge, she added, is recognizing the value of these research paths but at the same time preventing misuse. Jun Wu, an associate professor at the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern is one of a number of stem cell biologists involved in the field. He agreed that ectogenesis should be off the table but explained that researchers developing embryo models must engage in a delicate dance: To the unlock the mysteries of the human embryo, models have to resemble embryos closely enough to offer real insight but they must not resemble them so closely that they risk being viewed as viable. 'The big black box' — and a breakthrough Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, the Bren professor of biology and biological engineering at Caltech, said she welcomed the new guidelines. She announced in 2023 that her team had succeeded in a world first: growing embryo-like models to a stage resembling 14-day-old embryos. Later the same year, Jacob Hanna, a professor of stem cell biology and embryology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said his team had gone a step further with a model derived from skin cells that showed all the cell types that are essential for an embryo's development — including the precursor of the placenta. Together the work represented a breakthrough for the models' potential use in research on pregnancy loss: At 14 days the human embryo has begun to attach to the lining of the uterus, a process known as implantation. Many miscarriages occur around this stage, Zernicka-Geotz said. Lab research on human embryos beyond 14 days, including those donated from IVF treatments, is prohibited in most jurisdictions. And while some scientists do study tissue obtained from abortions, such tissue is limited because few procedures take place between week 2 and week 4 of an embryo's development. The ability to grow an embryo model outside of a womb at this developmental stage paves the way for studies that are not possible in living human embryos. 'Far more pregnancies fail than succeed during the critical window just before, during and immediately after implantation. This is why we created in my lab the embryo-like structures from stem cells as a way to really understand this critical and so highly fragile stage of development,' Zernicka-Goetz said. Clark agreed that embryo models could potentially be used to address infertility problems: 'Implantation. It's the big black box. Once the embryo implants in the uterus, we understand very little about the development,' Clark added. 'And if we can't study it, we don't know what we're missing.' By Katie Hunt, CNN
