News in the Spotlight

TPA Bill (2008)

A new TPA bill (California Senate Bill SB 1406) was introduced on February 21, 2008. After seven amendments were added to the bill during April–August 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 1406 into law on September 28, 2008, to take effect January 1, 2009.

The new law allows qualifying optometrists to use certain therapeutic pharmaceutical agents in the treatment of primary open angle glaucoma and exfoliative and pigmentary glaucoma, with fewer restrictions and some expansion of approved procedures and laboratory tests.

Graduates from optometry programs starting May 1, 2008 onwards automatically receive didactic accreditation; those who qualified to treat glaucoma under the previous SB 929 are grandfathered in. As before, the law required, after completing didactic courses, collaboration with ophthalmologists on the case-management of fifty patients for accreditation.

A six-member Glaucoma Diagnosis and Treatment Advisory Committee made up of three ophthalmologists and three optometrists will, by April 1, 2009, submit recommendations for glaucoma certification to the Office of Examination Resources of the Department of Consumer Affairs, which in turn, by July 1, 2009, will make its final report to the California Board of Optometry for implementation by January 1, 2010.

Susana Chung, MScOptom, PhD

Susan Chung, an Associate Professor in Vision Sciences at the College of Optometry, University of Houston, has accepted a position with Berkeley Optometry.

Dr. Chung uses rigorous psychophysical and imaging methods to study the capabilities of normal human subjects and patients with low vision. Patients with low vision due to AMD are unable to use their central vision to read, recognize faces or do other tasks that are critical to daily life. Therefore they have to use peripheral vision for these tasks. Her work represents rigorous, innovative research that is at the intersection of basic and clinical science. It has the capacity to inform clinicians, and her research is in turn informed and inspired by clinical problems. Her work has been widely published and extensively cited, and her research has been well funded by the National Eye Institute.

Best Careers for 2008

Optometry has been rated among the careers with "bright futures" in the December, 2007 issue of U.S. News and World Report web site. The article described 31 different careers and categorized them as excellent, good, fair and poor. (Kiplinger.com, in October 2008, also identified optometry as one of the "offshore-resistant careers with high job satisfaction and good job market outlook.")

From the hundreds of careers and variants in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook plus other candidate careers, the magazine selected the 31 that offered outstanding opportunities based on Job Satisfaction, Training Difficulty, Prestige, Job Market Outlook, and Pay.

More information on optometry can be found in the Occupational Outlook Handbook (www.bls.gov/oco/ocos073.htm). The Handbook notes that for optometry, "Employment is expected to grow faster than average in response to the vision care needs of a growing and aging population. Greater recognition of the importance of vision care, along with rising personal incomes and growth in employee vision care plans, also will spur job growth."

COA Board of Trustee Elections (Feb. 2008)

Berkeley Optometry alumnus David Redman ('91) has been elected President of the California Optometric Association Board of Trustees. In addition, alumnus Page Yarwood ('76) was re-elected as a Trustee of the COA.

We are pleased to announce the availability of 23 new Professional Student Support Funds (PSSF) for current Berkeley Optometry students. These endowed funds are provided through the generosity of current and retired Berkeley Optometry faculty, and are matched by the Graduate Division. Click on the link at the left to learn more!

The UC Berkeley Vision Science group will host the Annual Meeting of the Optical Society of America. The meeting is a small, low-cost, high-quality annual scientific conference. It generally co-locates with the OSA Frontiers in Optics meeting.

The Fall Vision Meeting focuses on human vision. It is broadly divided into four categories: Vision, Color, Applications, and Clinical. This year, we are hosting an additional day dedicated to the relationship between vision science and computer graphics and games.

Lu Chen, MD, an instructor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, and an investigator at the Schepens Eye Institute, an affiliate of Harvard University, has accepted a position with our Vision Science and Optometry faculty, effective fall 2007.

Dr. Chen area of research is lymphangiogenesis. This area of research is both novel and translational in nature. The cornea is an excellent model for studying new blood vessel growth in ocular disease (and likely other diseases such as cancer) because it is accessible, transparent and is free of lymphatics. The area of Dr. Chen's research is seen as highly expansive, with the potential to move and grow from the current emphasis on lymphangiogenesis in the cornea to other parts of the eye, namely retina and uvea, and to other organs.

Meredith Whiteside, OD, FAAO, was honored by the Alameda Contra Costa Counties Optometric Society (ACCCOS) as the Optometrist of the Year for 2006. This special award also marked the centennial year of the society. The award ceremony, which took place on April 15, 2007 at the Castlewood Country Club in Pleasant Hill, California, had as its theme, "Honoring Our Past, Envisioning Our Future." Dr. Weylin Eng, the 2005 honoree (and recently retired Assistant Clinical Professor from Berkeley Optometry), presented the award. See picture.

Dr. Whiteside was cited for her many outstanding contributions to the profession of optometry at the local, state, and national levels. This prestigious award comes from one of the oldest and largest local optometric societies in the country. Among its many notable accomplishments, the ACCCOS played a pivotal role in the establishment of the School of Optometry at U.C. Berkeley in 1923.

Dr. Whiteside is an Assistant Clinical Professor at Berkeley Optometry, and Director of Geriatric Outreach Clinics Over 60 Health Center Home Vision Care Program. She is also a Primary Care Clinic Instructor, Preclinical Laboratory Instructor, Advanced Clinical Procedures Instructor, and UCB/UCSF Interdisciplinary Geriatric Team Teaching Project Member.

Karsten Gronert, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmacology at New York Medical College, Valhalla, has accepted a position with our Vision Science and Optometry faculty, effective Fall 2007.

Dr. Gronert's research is focused on elucidating and defining the molecular mechanisms of these protective pathways at the ocular surface. He is unique in that he has expertise in working with the eye while also having significant training and expertise in general pharmacology. Because Dr. Gronert also has an active research program addressing the role of these processes in the kidney and gastro-intestinal tract, his ability to compare and contrast how different sites regulate immune responses places him in a unique position to extend his research to encompass the eye and make significant contributions to the School and the profession of optometry.

Dr. Gronert's long-term goals are to develop a multidisciplinary research program to define protective circuits that regulate the execution of the essential inflammatory/reparative response and, thus, provide new therapeutic approaches to minimize and control ocular damage and diseases.

Professor Christine Wildsoet has received the Sarlo Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Award for 2007. This newly created award, given by the Graduate Council of the University of California, has been made possible by a generous gift from the Sarlo Foundation, which supports the promotion of excellence in teaching.

Recipients must embody attributes of high-quality mentoring, such as those described in the Best Practices for Faculty Mentoring of Graduate Students adopted by the Graduate Council. Nominations may come from department chairs, faculty colleagues, or former students of the nominee with whom they have received their doctorates.

The UC Berkeley Sponsored Projects Office has just spotlighted two major grants awarded by the National Eye Institute to Berkeley Optometry Faculty.

Xiaohua Gong: "Cataractogenesis, Connexin Mutants and Genetic Modifiers" (NEI: $1,900,00)

Dennis Levi: "Limiting Factors in Normal and Amblyopic Spatial Vision" (NEI: $1,900,00)

See links at left for the Gong and Levi websites.

February 2007: Berkeley Optometry Alumni Nasiruddin Khan and Viraj Shah were named "Young Optometrists of the Year" by the California Optometric Association at its annual House of Delegates meeting in Sacramento.

See the links to News Releases at left (PDF documents).

February 2007: Berkeley Optometry Alumni and Clinical Faculty have joined the Board of Trustees of the California Optometric Association. Robert Theaker was named President and David Redman President-Elect; Jennifer On and Sasha Penn were named Trustees.

See the links to News Releases at left (PDF documents).

Effective January 2007, the California State Board of Optometry may issue a license to an optometrist who has passed a licensing exam in another state, submits proof of licensure in good standing in the other state, and proof of active practice.

The University of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Optometry, with the generous support of Vision Service Plan, have established the Optometric Private Practice Institute (OPPI). Its mission is to provide a center for the collection and dissemination of information to assist individuals who are dealing with the daily challenges of management and operation of private optometric practices.

In addition to receiving a top ranking for our graduate programs, UC Berkeley has just received another top placement.

Washington Monthly's Annual College Guide: "By our yardstick, the University of California, Berkeley is about the best thing for America we can find. It's good by all of our measurements."

The Contact Lens and Cornea Section of the American Optometric Association (AOA) will honor two Berkeley Optometry faculty at the June 2006 AOA meeting in Las Vegas, NV.

Robert B. Mandell, OD, PhD and Kenneth A. Polse, OD, MS (along with Richard M. Hill, OD, PhD; Ohio State University College of Optometry) will each receive the Dr. Donald Korb Award for Excellence. All are well known for their groundbreaking research in cornea, contact lenses, and oxygen requirements.

The Berkeley Clinical Scientist Development Program has been established by the University of California, School of Optometry. The program is funded by an NIH grant designed to give interdisciplinary research training to well-established clinicians (e.g. OD, MD, DVM, DDS, or equivalent professional degree) to carry out high-level, independent clinical (patient-based) vision research. The program will draw upon the rich resources of world-renowned departments and units from the University of California Berkeley and San Francisco campuses (including Optometry, Vision Science, Public Health, Neuroscience, Bioengineering, Health and Medical Science, Molecular & Cell Biology, Infectious Disease, Ophthalmology). It is anticipated that this program will help to strengthen the interdisciplinary approach to patient-based vision research.