The Glaucoma Foundation’s Annual Awards Presented at 2016 Think Tank Dinner
The Glaucoma Foundation (TGF) has awarded Ursula Schlötzer-Schrehardt, PhD, the 2016 Dr. Robert Ritch Award for Excellence and Innovation in Glaucoma for her distinguished career in glaucoma research. This award, named in honor of Dr. Robert Ritch, founder of TGF and its Medical Director, recognizes the contributions of individuals who have played a significant and unique role in promoting the medicine and science of glaucoma.
The award was presented at The Glaucoma Foundation’s Gala Dinner which opened its 23 rd Annual Interdisciplinary Scientific Think Tank held in New York City on June 10 th and 11 th . The gathering was the fourth TGF Think Tank to deal with exfoliation syndrome-- the most common identifiable cause of open angle glaucoma worldwide and the current focus of all Foundation research initiatives. Forty-five participants from the U.S, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand participated in the 2016 Think Tank.
Dr. Schlötzer-Schrehardt is associate professor, lecturer in experimental ophthalmology, and senior scientist in the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Erlangen, in Germany. Among previous awards, she has received the Ophthalmic Pathology Award of the International Council of Ophthalmology.
She has gained broad recognition worldwide as one of the leading basic researchers in the field of exfoliation syndrome (XFS) and exfoliation glaucoma. One of her most outstanding contributions is the documentation of exfoliation syndrome as a new systemic process affecting the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, cerebral meninges and blood vessel walls, which provoked a large number of studies investigating potential associations of XFS and systemic diseases. Lately she is focusing on functional genetic studies to find out how variants in XFS-associated genes impact on pathophysiology.
Also honored at The Glaucoma’s Foundation 2016 Gala was Ambassador Francis Deng, writer, scholar, diplomat and South Sudan’s first ambassador to the United Nations. Dr. Deng, who received the Kitty Carlisle Hart Award for Merit for Lifetime Achievement, has devoted his life’s work to such critical issues as human rights, internal displacement, conflict resolution and law and society.