Professional News

Ambati to Receive International Award for AMD Research

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 8, 2009) − Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, professor and vice chairman of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Kentucky, has been selected the 2010 winner of the Roger Johnson MD Memorial Award in Macular Degeneration Research. The award recognizes outstanding contribution to the understanding of the pathogenesis and treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by a clinician or basic science researcher working anywhere in the world.

"I am humbled to receive this prestigious award," Ambati said. "It is a tribute to the tremendous ingenuity and industry of my entire team of young scientists who are as dedicated as I am to hasten the day when blindness from AMD is a distant memory."

The award was created by Dr. Roger Johnson, an esteemed clinical faculty member of the Department of Ophthalmology at University of Washington in Seattle. Johnson's intent in creating this award was to attract the best scientists of every field to AMD research and recognize those whose accomplishments have significantly furthered the field. The award is presented every two years through the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Washington School of Medicine where Johnson received his medical education.

Ambati's lab has made numerous foundational contributions in macular degeneration research with numerous papers published in Nature, Nature Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. His lab described the first animal model of AMD, demonstrated that complement activation triggers an advanced form of AMD, and identified new imaging strategies that might detect AMD before vision loss occurs. Ambati is the Dr. E. Vernon Smith & Eloise C. Smith Endowed Chair in Macular Degeneration, and he was the first ophthalmologist to win the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research.

Ambati will receive a cash award and deliver a lecture on his work at the UW Dept. of Ophthalmology's Resident Alumni Day in June 2010.