$2.6 million in grant funding to support research on genetic causes of blindness

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana University School of Medicine’s Yoshikazu Imanishi, PhD, was recently awarded a four-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Eye Institute and a three-year, $500,000 grant from the Foundation Fighting Blindness to study genetic causes of blindness.

Some of the most devastating vision impairments and causes of blindness occur in people who have inherited mutated genes from their parents. These conditions are called retinitis pigmentosa, afflicting 1 in 4,000 people in the United States.

Through the National Eye Institute grant, Imanishi aims to understand why proteins in photoreceptor neurons — specialized cells found in the retina that convert light energy into electrical signals that ultimately reach the brain — get misplaced and cause blindness. He’ll also study how different parts of these cells are organized and supported by cytoskeletal elements, which are like the bones of cells.

“My goal is to better understand what causes blindness,” said Imanishi, associate professor of ophthalmology at the IU School of Medicine and director of ocular neurobiology at the school’s Stark Neurosciences Research Institute. “This grant aims to help us develop treatments and possibly find a cure for people who have retinitis pigmentosa, a condition caused by specific genetic mutations.” 

The Foundation Fighting Blindness grant will fund Imanishi’s research project to discover small molecules that mitigate vision loss associated with PRPH2 gene mutations. The project will use an innovative method that allows scientists to quickly test thousands of potential drugs to find effective treatments.

This research is supported by the IU School of Medicine’s Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute.

About the IU School of Medicine

The IU School of Medicine is the largest medical school in the U.S. and is annually ranked among the top medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. The school offers high-quality medical education, access to leading medical research and rich campus life in nine Indiana cities, including rural and urban locations consistently recognized for livability. According to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, the IU School of Medicine ranks No. 13 in 2023 National Institutes of Health funding among all public medical schools in the country.