News & Media

Preliminary Results Published of First-in-Human Clinical Trial for Dry AMD

April 05, 2018

A team of doctors, engineers and scientists — including UC Santa Barbara stem cell researchers Dennis Clegg, Lincoln Johnson, Sherry Hikita and Britney Pennington — has published the preliminary results of a first-in-human clinical trial for dry AMD. Four patients received implants consisting of human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), which support light-sensitive photoreceptor cells critical to vision. The phase 1/2A trial, led by Dr. Amir Kashani, is being conducted at the University of Southern California Roski Eye Institute at the campus’s Keck School of Medicine. 

UCSB Current

Lindsay Bailey-Steinitz Wins Best Poster at the Ocular Diseases and Drug Discovery Conference

March 23, 2018

Lindsay Bailey-Steinitz has won Best Poster at the Ocular Diseases and Drug Discovery conference in San Diego. The conference brings together leading scientists, researchers, and experts to discuss and collaborate on combating and curing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), dry eye, glaucoma, diabetic macular edema (DME), and other ocular diseases. Lindsay's poster, "ECIS as a Platform for Uncovering AMD Therapeutics", focuses on her research in the Coffey Lab on wet age-related macular degeneration.

Ocular Diseases Drug Discovery Conference

Clinical Trial Results: The London Project to Cure Blindness

March 19, 2018

The London Project to Cure Blindness, headed by Pete Coffey of the UC Santa Barbara Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering and Neuroscience Research Institute, has reported initial findings from a clinical trial.

Results from this groundbreaking study, published in Nature Biotechnology, describe the safe and effective implantation of a specially engineered patch of retinal pigment epithelium cells derived from embryonic stem cells to treat people with sudden severe sight loss from wet age-related macular degeneration.

Nature Biotechnology PublicationUCSB Current
Photo Credit: Gail Arnold

Braille Institute Auxiliary Hosts Festival of Flavors

September 15, 2017

On Sunday, September 10, more than 100 supporters of the Santa Barbara Braille Institute gathered on its lovely campus for the 3rd annual Festival of Flavors. The Santa Barbara Braille Institute Auxiliary hosts this fundraiser to support the multitude of free classes, programs and services at the institute for the blind and visually impaired.

Santa Barbara Independent

In Memoriam: William K. Bowes

August 29, 2017

Friend and benefactor of the University of California, Santa Barbara community, William K. Bowes, has passed away at the age of 90. Visionary, philanthropist, pioneer of Silicon Valley venture capitalism, trailblazer of venture philanthropy; through it all he was “Bill”, husband to his wife Ute of 51 years, ally to our country’s education system, and a genuine and decent human being whose life has enriched countless others through his astounding contributions and care.

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