On the 250th anniversary of the death of composer George Frideric Handel, Dr. Daniel Albert recently spoke to BBC Radio about the signs, symptoms, and probable eye diseases of Handel and Bach and why they went blind. Both composers were treated by Chevalier John Taylor, a British eye surgeon and shameless self-promoter with an unsavory …

Eye Research Institute and Visual Culture Center members and associated scientists, researchers, postdocs, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates with wide-ranging interests in vision gathered to showcase both scientific research and artistic works in the annual ERI poster session. Outstanding graduate student and postdoctoral trainee poster and artwork presentations were recognized with the following awards: Best …

Professor Stephen Palmer, Department of Psychology, UC-Berkeley Dr. Palmer will present a talk on “Aesthetics in Vision Science: Understanding Preferences for Color.” His interests are in perceptual organization in vision, contextual effects on local cognitive processing, the aesthetics of color and spatial arrangement, and the nature and order of visual processing.

A small exhibit on the first floor of Memorial Library honors the bicentenary of the birth of Louis Braille, born in 1809 in Coupvray, near Paris, France, and died in 1852 in Paris. The system of printing and writing Louis Braille developed while still in his teens now bears his name and enjoys wide use. …

Daniel Uhlrich, PhD, of the Department of Anatomy has been named Chair of the SMPH Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC). This committee is responsible for oversight and evaluation of the School’s animal care and use program, procedures, and facilities to ensure that they are consistent with recommendations of the NIH Guide for the Care …

Erik Weihenmayer, a blind mountain climber, will describe his experiences with BrainPort at the NEI 40th anniversary kickoff. The event will feature a screening of Blindsight, an award-winning documentary chronicling Weihenmayer’s mountain-climbing journey up the north face of Mount Everest with six blind Tibetan teenagers. Researchers will also debut the third-generation BrainPort device, produced by …

Margaret McFall-Ngai, Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology, has been awarded a 2009 Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. During her Guggenheim term, Dr. McFall-Ngai will study the role of symbiosis in shaping evolutionary selection, specifically on the form and function of the animal immune system. The traditional view of …

The Eye Research Institute has awarded grants to the following five projects in 2009: An in vitro model of eye movements and choice Principal Investigator, Michele A. Basso (Physiology; Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences) Collaborator: Meyer B. Jackson (Physiology) Use of vitamin D3 analogues for the treatment of neovascular AMD Principal Investigator, Ronald P. Danis(Ophthalmology & …

The developing program in Visual Culture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, like that of the UW Eye Research Institute, is committed to fostering research collaborations and dialogue that connect the analysis and practice of the visual across the humanities, arts, social sciences, and sciences. This conference on “Perception” represents a fundamental part of our initiative …

Dr. David Gamm, who is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and member of the UW Eye Research Institute, has been awarded a 5-year grant for the project “Customized iPS Cell Therapy for Recessive Monogenetic Retinal Degenerative Diseases.” Stem cells can be produced from a patient’s skin cells (known as induced pluripotent stem …