TGS Biomedical Students Recognized at Culver Conference

The Culver Vision Discovery Institute (VDI) Savannah River Eye Meeting is the annual conference of the James and Jean Culver VDI homed in the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University (AU). This year the meeting was held on the AU Summerville Campus on March 13th. There was a record number of attendees including faculty, staff, clinicians, researchers, medical students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, all working on or interested in the future of vision research and the betterment of the therapeutics for eye diseases. The keynote speaker was Dr. Janey Wiggs (Harvard/Mass Eye and Ear Institute, Mass General Brigham Hospital), who spoke on the genetics of glaucoma and translational medicine through the identification and prevention of underdiagnosed pediatric and adult glaucoma.

In large part because of the Culver VDI, AU is the top institution in terms of funding from National Eye Institute (NEI) in Georgia. This academic year alone, VDI faculty researchers have garnered NEI funding on five new R01 grants in addition to existing funding through both individual NIH grants and the Vision Research Core Grant homed in the Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy. Collectively, these grants bring in over $11 million dollars to AU. Importantly, many of these grants also support the training of our graduate students, many of whom presented their work at the March 13th VDI meeting. Among those students were Briah Bailey, a first-year Biomedical Science PhD student working with Dr. Menaka Thounaojam, and Richard Kontoh-Twumasi, a second-year Biomedical Science PhD student working with Dr. Shruti Sharma. Both students took home top honors for the day, with Briah selected as the “Best Graduate Student 3-minute Data Blaze” and Richard selected for the “Best Graduate Student Poster Award.”

Each of the winners saw stiff competition from the rest of the six 3-minute Data Blaze presentations and the 37 poster presentations. Congratulations to Briah, Richard, and the other AU TGS trainees who presented their research at the Culver Vision Discovery Institute (VDI) Savannah River Eye Meeting.

Harry Henry-Ojo, Clinical Pharmacy
Ebenezer Quainoo, Neuroscience
Rachel Hadvina, Genomic Medicine
Sam Melnyk, Physiology
Stepan Budkin, Genomic Medicine
Sheila Ngumbi, Biochemistry & Cancer Biology
Samuel Melnyk, Physiology
Yongfeng Cai, Postdoctoral Fellow: Vascular Biology Center
Qiuhua Yang, Postdoctoral Fellow: Vascular Biology Center
Jingwen Cai, Postdoctoral Fellow: Cellular Biology & Anatomy
Ronny Amamoo, Biochemistry & Cancer Biology