Kellogg Eye Center vision research scientist and Taubman Emerging Scholar Rajesh C. Rao, MD, won The American Society for Clinical Investigation’s Young Physician-Scientist Award, which includes an invitation to present his groundbreaking eye cancer research and be recognized at its 2017 Joint Meeting in Chicago April 21-23.
He performed the first systematic genetic study of vitreoretinal lymphoma (VRL). There is currently no treatment to control the disease, a blinding lymphoma with a typical survival rate of three years. Dr. Rao used next-generation sequencing to find several targetable genetic changes, including never-before-identified mutations that promote cancer (oncogenes) and loss in portions of chromosomes that guard against cancer (tumor suppressors).