Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) has granted the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine a $30,000 RPB Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship to enable Katherine Du to take a year off from medical school and to devote that time to the pursuit of a research project within the Department of Ophthalmology.
The project is titled "Machine learning algorithms for assessing quality and monitoring pathologies on optical coherence tomography scans." Katherine says, "The creation of a diagnostic tool to help identify retinal pathologies will lead to increased accuracy and standardization of disease diagnoses, enhancing the clinical practice of doctors. Additionally, a retinal disease diagnostic tool can help advance equity in eye care, by increasing access to OCT imaging interpretation in underserved areas and possibly the triage of severe disease to nearby hospitals."
Since it was founded in 1960, RPB has channeled more than $418 million into eye research. As a result, RPB has been identified with nearly every major breakthrough in vision research in that time. For information on RPB’s grants program, listings of RPB institutional and individual grantees, and findings generated by these awards, go to www.rpbusa.org.
Congratulations, Katherine!!