Retina Foundation of the Southwest

Meet our Laboratory DirectorsFrom left: Yi-Zhong Wang, PhD, Eileen Birch, PhD, Karl Csaky, MD, PhD, David Birch, PhD, Sri Sripathi, PhD

Established in 1975, the Retina Foundation is a world-renowned research institute with the unwavering mission to prevent vision loss and restore sight through innovative research and treatment. The Retina Foundation develops potential treatments for patients with varioueye diseases through laboratory science and clinical trials.

Each year, the Retina Foundation sees more than 2,300 infants, children and adults, referred by their eye care provider, completely free of charge for specialized vision evaluations, genetic testing and counseling, and participation in clinical trials.

Our three core research areas are pediatric eye conditions, inherited eye diseases, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Pediatric Eye Conditions

• Discovered that DHA in mother’s milk is necessary for infant eye and brain development. Enhanced baby formula containing DHA is now sold worldwide.
• Transformed surgical practice through the discovery that congenital cataracts must be removed during a baby’s first weeks of life. 
• Developed a more effective way to detect amblyopia (lazy eye) in preschool children with the Pediatric Vision Scanner. 
• Discovered iPad games are a more effective treatment for children with amblyopia (lazy eye) than the standard treatment of patching the fellow eye. 

Inherited Eye Diseases

• Identified genes responsible for inherited eye diseases and developed the Southwest Eye Registry (over 9,100 patients) which have paved the way for gene therapy and stem cell therapy clinical trials to improve vision and slow disease progression.
• Developed sensitive tests for early detection of retinal degeneration, independent measurement of rod and cone function, and retinal function utilizing the full-field electroretinography (ERG). 
• Invented the home vision test and app, myVisionTracker™, which enables an ophthalmologist to monitor a patient’s AMD remotely between appointments. 

Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

• Created a world-class clinic to examine patients with AMD that includes state of the art
  imaging and precise tools for assessing the degree of vision deficits in patients with various forms of AMD.
• Established a laboratory dedicated to developing novel AMD treatments specifically for the synthesis and examination of novel therapeutics, and for understanding how best to deliver drugs to the retina.
• Received patent approvals in the United States, Europe, and Japan for a two-layer ocular implant for the delivery of drugs to the eye for the treatment of dry AMD. The goal is for the implant device to release drug into the eye gradually over weeks, months, or years. 
• Supported by a $2.5 million grant award from the W. W. Caruth, Jr. Foundation at Communities Foundation of Texas, the Retina Foundation and SMU Lyle School of Engineering collaborated in a venture to rapidly prototype new diagnostic and clinical treatment approaches for patients who are losing their vision to AMD. The result of that effort is new patent-pending medical imaging technology in an original video game, Eye in the Sky: Defender. Created and crowd- sourced by BALANCED Media Technology, the game uses optical coherence tomography (OCT) retinal images embedded in the game’s environment to create human-computational image segmentation. As players predict the path of the alien force in the game, they unknowingly learn to trace lines used to perform diagnostic remnants of OCT retinal scans and create new datasets.

Our Needs

Our essential needs are:

• A vision testing system that can be programmed for tests that will be used in clinical trials for individuals diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa.
• Equipment for the age-related macular degeneration stem cell laboratory.
• Genetic testing and genetic counseling for patients and families with inherited retinal diseases. 
• Assessments for children with Pediatric eye conditions.