Dr. Dean Bok Receives Foundation Fighting Blindness Career Achievement Award

OWINGS MILLS, Md.--(Business Wire)--
Dr. Dean Bok of the Jules Stein Eye Institute of UCLA received the Llura Liggett
Gund Award, the top honor presented by the Foundation Fighting Blindness, on May
7, 2009. The highly coveted award honors researchers for extraordinary career
achievements that have significantly advanced the research and development of
preventions, treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases that affect
more than 10 million Americans. The award has previously been presented to only
four researchers throughout the Foundation's 38-year history.

Recipients of the Llura Liggett Gund Award are leading visionaries in the
retinal research community and have played significant roles in advancing the
study of blinding diseases and the search for cures and treatments. Dr. Bok, is
a world renowned leader in defining how vitamin A metabolism is essential to
vision. His research led the way in establishing the gene defect in vitamin A
metabolic cycle that ultimately directed researchers toward recent successful
gene therapy clinical trials for Leber's congenital amaurosis, a severe, early
onset form of retinitis pigmentosa.

Dr. Bok's career achievements include producing, characterizing and using
transgenic animal models to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying
inherited retinal diseases as well as developing modes of treatment for these
diseases. In collaboration with Dr. Michael Redmond of the National Institutes
of Health, Dr. Bok characterized the RPE-65 gene in a genetically engineered
mouse, which set the groundwork for the first promising retinal gene therapy
trial in humans. With Dr. Gabriel Travis and Dr. Matthew LaVail, he has studied
molecules in photoreceptors and the related defects that are responsible for the
retinal degenerative disease retinitis pigmentosa. He has also used CNTF-based
gene therapy to successfully arrest the progression of disease in these animals.
Dr. Bok's research has directly led to many industry projects focused on
providing treatments for age related macular degeneration (AMD), Stargardt
disease, a childhood form of macular degeneration, and other inherited retinal
degenerations.

The Foundation Fighting Blindness is the largest source of non-governmental
funding for retinal degenerative disease research in the world. The urgent
mission of Foundation Fighting Blindness is to drive the research that will
provide preventions, treatments and cures for people affected by retinal
degenerative diseases. www.FightBlindness.org

To speak with Dr. Bok, contact Chris Vassil at 202-340-8099 or
cvassil@susandavis.com.

Foundation Fighting Blindness
Chris Vassil, 202-340-8099
cvassil@susandavis.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009