Dr. Jane Sayer, a research scientist at NIDDK, has established the Sayer Vision Research Lecture and Award at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, in partnership with the National Eye Institute to honor her family and the memory of her parents, Winthrop and Laura Sayer.

Dr. Martin Friedlander will deliver the first Sayer Vision Research Lecture on May 25.

The lecture and award series will provide an opportunity for honorees to explore areas of interdisciplinary collaboration such as angiogenesis that may lead to advances in diverse medical specialties with relevance to vision research. A number of factors place vision science in a position for major advances in the near future — including the large number of identified genes relevant to eye disease and the relative ease with which pathology can be visualized and documented in the eye.

The first Sayer Vision Research Lecture will be delivered by Dr. Martin Friedlander, professor in the department of cell biology at Scripps Research Institute and chief of retina services, division of ophthalmology, department of surgery at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif. The lecture, titled "Stemming Vision Loss with Stem Cells," will take place on Thursday, May 25 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Lipsett Amphitheater, Bldg. 10.

In the near future, the Sayer Vision Research Fund will support two related activities: a lecture by a nationally or internationally prominent scientist — from within or outside NIH — in a discipline with relevance to vision research, and an award to a promising new investigator in vision research within the intramural NIH community. The winner of the award will receive a grant-in-aid for his or her current research and will be asked to present the next Sayer Vision Research Lecture, which will provide the awardee with broad recognition both locally and internationally. More information about the details of this award will be available soon.