Crossing borders between laboratory research and clinical applications
SOURCE: Health E-News.
Leonard Levin, MD, PhD, an investigator in the Brain Repair and Integrative Neuroscience Program at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, is the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology’s (ARVO) 2023 recipient of the Mildred Weisenfeld Award for Excellence in Ophthalmology. The award was established as a tribute to Mildred Weisenfeld’s outstanding contributions to the field, including the founding of Fight for Sight in 1946. A young woman with retinitis pigmentosa, she believed that encouraging research would have a great impact in helping people with vision disorders.
“The Weisenfeld award has traditionally been given to physician-scientists who are at the borderland between laboratory research and clinical applications — a zone which has also been called the valley of death because so many projects fail there,” says Dr. Levin. “I was truly speechless to find out I had received the award, but with the happiness comes the sobering realization that there is so much I and my colleagues still need to do.”
Dr. Levin is Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Riva & Thomas O. Hecht Family Chair in Ophthalmology. He was educated and trained at Harvard University, where he earned an AB magna cum laude in applied mathematics and an MD and a PhD in neurobiology. During the course of his career Dr. Levin has specialized in clinical work and laboratory research related to diseases of the optic nerve and retina, with specific interests in neuroprotection and translational research, while continuing to supervise graduate students.
ARVO is the largest and most respected eye and vision research organization in the world, with nearly 11,000 members representing 75 countries. Dr. Levin will present the Weisenfeld Award Lecture at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting to be held in April 2023 in New Orleans.
Congratulations Dr. Levin!
Learn more about the ARVO awards
July 28, 2022