A leader in the field of retinal disease research, Penn has been continuously funded as a principal investigator by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health since 1984.

The NIH is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. VUSM, which received $586 million in direct and indirect NIH grant support in FY24, has been among the top 10 recipients of NIH funding among U.S. medical schools for nine of the past 15 years.

The military was interested in finding ways to reduce impact on the brain by developing strategies that could be employed during training exercises.

In both military and civilian populations, when TBI patients are asked to fill out a symptom inventory, about 80% of them will self-report difficulty reading or other vision problems.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is extensively involved in partnerships with the military that both assist individuals as they transition out of service to be civilian veterans and help active-duty military medical personnel maintain their critical skills needed during deployment.

Sternberg has a long history of leadership in ophthalmology, including serving as president of the AUPO, president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, president of the Macula Society and chair of the Board of Governors for the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Foundation.

A full understanding of retinal cell types and their functions could point to novel therapeutic targets for diseases that affect the visual system, such as glaucoma — a leading cause of blindness for people over age 60.