Ambati to Receive Mark Brothers Award

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 22, 2013) − Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, professor and vice chair in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and professor of physiology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, will receive the 2013 Mark Brothers Award from the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Dr. and Mrs. Guey C. Mark created the endowed Mark Brothers Lectureship to recognize nationally and internationally renowned medical scientists of Asian descent. The Mark Brothers Lectureship was established in 1997 in honor of Dr. Mark’s brothers, who immigrated from Canton and settled in South Bend, Ind., where they built a successful restaurant business.

The brothers, because of their reverence and respect for higher education, supported their youngest brother, Dr. Mark, in his pursuit of a career in medicine. The award is presented annually and consists of a plaque and a cash prize. Dr. Mark was a member of the School of Medicine’s Class of 1954 and he passed away Aug. 4, 2010.

Ambati holds the Dr. E. Vernon & Eloise C. Smith Endowed Chair in Macular Degeneration at UK. His group has made foundational contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms by which age-related macular degeneration may develop. Their work has been published in premier journals such as Nature, Cell, and Nature Medicine, and is supported, in part, by the National Eye Institute, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Ellison Medical Foundation, and Research to Prevent Blindness.

The award will be presented to Ambati at the 2013 Mark Brothers Lectureship to be held Oct. 7 - 8, 2013. at Indiana University.

Media Contact: Ann Blackford at 859-323-6442 or ann.blackford@uky.edu