Report issued on US-Indo collaboration to advance visio...( funding projects that include investig...),Health

The workshops

The goal of the workshops was to identify and promote U.S.-Indo collaborative opportunities. Five core areas were considered: molecular genetics of eye disease; clinical aspects of genetic eye disease; harmonization of clinical measurement techniques and terminology; translational physiology; and identification, development, and exchange of research resources.

Several new ideas emerged during the workshops. One is for an ambitious project called the Human Ocular Phenome/Genome Evaluation (HOPE) project. The project would require the involvement of specialists beyond the eye research community, such as human geneticists, bioinformaticists, and genomics and proteomics experts.

The report

The report describes the steps that led to the workshops, the resources of the two nations, various regulatory and funding issues, the five core research areas, and proposals for collaborative research and training. A hope of the organizers is that additional eye and vision research scientists will see opportunities to participate.

(On August 24, 2005, just four months after the second workshop, a Statement of Intent was signed by India's Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, Dr. Maharaj K. Bhan, and the NIH's Director, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, to expand collaboration in vision research.)

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Contact: Elinore Tibbetts
etibbetts@arvo.org
240-221-2923
Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
24-May-2006