Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: So, hey, welcome. This is a special episode of the Bench, the Boardroom podcast. We are at the ARVO 2024 meeting, association for Research and Vision and Ophthalmology. We are in lovely Seattle, Washington, where the rain never stops.
And I am here with two of my good friends and special guests. Everyone knows Doctor Diane Bovenkamp.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Bright Focus foundation. And Preeti, why don't you introduce yourself? Yeah.
[00:00:40] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Preeti Subramanian. I'm the director for vision science at Brightfocus foundation.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Excellent. So we actually just started the day at a bright focus sponsored event called the Restore Consortium, which is held by investigators at Johns Hopkins University.
I guess my first question is, what did you guys think? What did we learn today? What was kind of exciting?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Wow. Did you want to go first?
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Well, I think it's really ambitious project with the ultimate goal of connecting the eye to the brain. And these are like laying the roadmap on how we can, in a more structured way, get to. To the final goal of vision restoration.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Right?
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah, because there's many steps, and you need to bring in people from many different countries with different expertise to be able to transplant, to try and replace the vision that has been lost, the cells that have been lost, those rgcs to transplant it in, make sure it survives, make sure it starts extending out in the right direction.
And there's, like, many waylay stations along the way, and then get to connect to the, you know, occipital lobe or whatever in the back. But then you have to be able to see something you don't want to, you know, see a marshmallow and think that it's a crocodile or something on the back.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: And I thought that that was particularly interesting, too, because you're right. When we think about if someone has. If someone is blind or, you know, they have, like, some kind of trauma that's made them lose vision and even just one eye. The hurdles that have to be overcome for those nerves to potentially regrow is one thing, but I think the other really interesting component of it was other tests that could be done to demonstrate functional vision and gaining it back. So, for example, we think about the test that we get at the eye doctor all the time. And when you're starting to go blind, there's other very standardized tests that they do, but that doesn't always necessarily translate to a person's ability to walk down a hallway, you know, or cross the street knowing that it's safe. Or, as you said, diane, recognize an object for what it is.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: For what it is.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: You know, and so one of the most interesting points, I think, that was brought up today was there are patients who are completely blind to both eyes, who don't know if it's nighttime or daytime.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Oh, yes.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: If they. It would be fantastic, obviously, if we could get them to gain enough vision that they could see again. But maybe we even just start with them being able to tell that it's nighttime again. Yes. They can sleep again. You know, they can. Maybe they still need a cane or a guide dog or something, but at least they, they can rest. And that's going to be a huge change to a game changer in terms of their quality of life.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: And I thought that was just. I thought that was a really excellent point that was brought up a few times in my small group today.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I think it's a great point. And I think that also tells about the importance of engaging patients in all of these research initiatives, because we want to know what they are looking forward to, and that's what our goal should be, is to meet them where they want us to.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: The other cool thing that came from the third group that was talking more about clinical translation, they were saying, maybe we should sit down with the FDA to try and get absolutely better primary outcomes to try and define it. And I think that borrowing what's already been done from other groups would be great. So I'm thinking with the gene therapy for Luxturna, they actually had this, what you were talking about navigating in the real world, the navigation around steps and around. I think that one would probably a good one to try and bring into the glaucoma world.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: I completely agree.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: So this, so what Diane's talking about is a test that was created by a company because they have a gene therapy. Is it for labor's congenital?
[00:04:54] Speaker B: It originally was with researchers. They did it with dogs.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Lancelot the dog, anyways. But, yeah, they brought it. The company brought it in for humans.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:04] Speaker C: And so the.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: They were all little kids. These are young. These are young kids that suffer from this. And so what they did was they realized that standardized testing wasn't working for them because they, they could tell that the kids were getting better, but the traditional tests weren't showing that. So they, they created a maze for these kids to do, and they standardized the different levels of light. Right. And so then they could see that after an injection, the kids. Before the injection, the kids could only do the maze at like, the highest level of light, and they would step out of the maze or they would step off the line, they would trip on something. And even at the highest levels of light, they still couldn't be successful. But after the injection, they could use lower levels of light and the kids could still successfully navigate the maze. And they managed to get that approved by the FDA as a standardized test. But you're right, Diana, we should do that for everybody.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Borrow from other. Yeah, so, but I mean, I think it was really, really exciting. It was really invigorating for me to see all the scientists. They were like kids in a candy store today. And I just love talking about it. It's been a while since I was in the wet lab, but I went in the vascular, you know, the neurovascular unit, and of course to regrow nerves, you need to bring in oxygen and take away waste. You also have to grow with and all the other cells. So that was really exciting today to kick that off. Bright focus not only supported the meeting, but we gave these little micro funds to try. And so two years ago, and last year we put out a review and it's like, these are the low hanging fruits. So then we said, well, why don't we give micro funds and some people can try and test the low hanging fruit. And four of them that we gave funds to presented today, there's like half of them kind of work with the hypothesis and the other half is like, well that didn't work, but that's good. We'll just scratch that off the list and we'll just change it. And so it contributed to this. So I think that way of micro funding might, you know, might be cool to do that from that provide seed.
[00:07:05] Speaker C: Fund for small experiments that can have a huge impact on telling us whether or not it's, we're going in the right direction.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Sure. What do you guys consider micro funds?
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Micro funds, I guess people were getting money, they're getting between 5015 thousand each.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: So we gave 50,000.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Okay, that's a micro fund. You do like a little discrete experiment.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Okay. And was there a time frame attributed to that?
[00:07:29] Speaker C: They had about nine months.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Six or nine months, yeah.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Okay. Nine months of just a hypothesis that helped.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: One sub hypothesis.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: And then you guys have a few other things that are going on at Arvo. What else? What else are you up to?
[00:07:44] Speaker C: So actually at the restore meeting, we also had travel awards.
Yes, to participants, early stage investigators to participate. And we also have travel awards for our meeting. So we have twelve travel awardees and half of those are women scientists as part of our diversity travel award, to encourage participation at the meeting. And then we have 1213 hot topics that are bright, focus funded projects that.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Are being presented at the most ever, I think, plus others and close to.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: 70 presentations between poster and talks for Brightfocus.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Why is providing travel funds important to the Brightfocus foundation?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Well, I think that not only is it important to give funds for researchers to do the experiments and, like, test the hypothesis, but they have to share it with the community for it to be built upon, to translate it towards the clinic, or at least other people can build upon it.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: So that's important. Plus the ability to go to a conference, especially if you're an early career investigator, network with your peers and others. That's vital for your own career, as well as gathering new ideas, right?
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think it's really important to defend your ideas, to present at these meetings, to get feedback from the community on, you know, how you can, like, really fine tune your work as you go along. So it's a really great opportunity to come to such a big meeting and present your work.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: And chances are the people who are asking you questions are probably going to be the ones reviewing your manuscript or reviewing your next grant anyway.
[00:09:29] Speaker C: Exactly. So it's good to be on the.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Good terms and also be on good terms with those people.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: They know your work really well, so that, you know, that's true. When they look at it as a reviewer or, you know, as an editor, they, you know, they are able to make a better judgment.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's part of conference etiquette. You want to, you don't want to burn bridges or. Oh, no.
But I think it's also important, no matter what personality type you are, it's really good to try and socialize. So go to those social events. Go. Go to the poster sessions. And if you're an extreme introvert, it's still good to, I would say, you know, like, okay, so if I'm here alone, just pick three people in the room to go and approach and just introduce yourself to, and talk to them, and then, then you can feel like you've done a job. Job well done. Or, you know, if you like the conversation, you can stay.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: Absolutely. And I think posters are a great way to have that one on one conversation with the presenter. And, you know, it's in a smaller group. You know, it could be one on one or just, like, couple of people standing at the poster.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: So for the science, but also for our listeners. Right. To also go up and maybe do informational interview about what it's like, especially if there's people who are presenting and they're from a pharma abs.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I was actually just thinking that that is one of the best ways to make introductions. If it's a company that you're interested in or even if you're not, it's practice, you know, but you can say, hey, you know, what's your research on? What does your company do? What's your role there? You know, and that. That's the best icebreaker in the world. It's literally right there. You don't even have to make eye contact. You can look at the poster.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: What better thing to talk about them and their work.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. We say that all the time. People love to talk about themselves. You know, what do you do here? And they'll tell you. And for the most part, I mean, unless they're obviously busy or they're obviously engaged with something else. I mean, it's been my experience. We're always happy to talk to people, you know? And I'm sure if someone came up to the bright focus booth and said, what. What is your role? What do you. What do you do? You know? And are you, you know, are you looking for people? I mean, you'll talk to them. You'd answer them.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Well, I mean, none of us, Riti.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: And I are both, you know, part of our job, but also part of our passion is to mentor the next generation.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, connect with them, talk with them.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: Encourage them to apply and come and talk to us. Right.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: So other things at conferences, did you want to tell them about the weaver drop in sessions and some other things that you do for Arvo?
[00:12:11] Speaker A: That's a good idea.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: So part of one of the activity that the Weber committee, which is the women in I research, I don't know.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: What it stands for either.
Weaver. Weaver women, eyes and vision research.
Something like that.
[00:12:29] Speaker C: Sorry, I'm the committee member.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: I should.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I think larvae wouldn't have sounded good. I like Weaver's better than.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: One of the things we do is provide mentoring sessions. So you can sign up or you can just walk in and show up. It's by the Arvo information booth in the exhibitor. All you can come and talk to the experts who are going to be, you know, available to hear any concerns that you might have for professional concerns on how to navigate or apply to medical school or graduate school.
So definitely I would encourage anyone listening to take advantage of that.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: What about. I know some conferences they have at least they used to do this at Arvo where they would have an area where you could drop off your resume or your cv.
[00:13:17] Speaker C: They still have it.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: They still have that.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: And you can find information on the Arvo app.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:22] Speaker C: About that. I think they have set timings on when you will have somebody to review the resume. So that's still available.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah. Okay.
Can we talk about business cards for a second?
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Ah, so.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Well, because in industry, we always carry around business cards and we just have, like, a ton. But people are switching now to, like, digital business cards. Right. Do you guys get into it?
[00:13:45] Speaker B: But I haven't created it. But I think it. And I think I just saw you earlier. You just, like, did bump phones and exchange contact. I'm going, darn. I have to get mine set up that way.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Beauty of iPhones, you put them head.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: To head and then just.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Magic happens.
I got someone's contact information. So, yes, that's another way to do it. But I heard that, like, I think there are business cards that QR code.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: There's your resume, there's your cv. And I need to do this. Okay. I was just curious if you guys did that yet. I think it's a great idea.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great idea. And definitely something I'm thinking about, because I don't like to carry my card anymore. With me, it's just like, you know, it's so much easier. I usually connect with them on LinkedIn. I just say, like, just look me up on LinkedIn.
And I usually connect that way, but I think that having a digital card is great.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Most of the time, I forget the cards, and so what I just do is, if they're on iPhone, I just airdrop them.
My web. Yeah, my web. Web. Contact from bright focus page.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Okay, nice.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Or LinkedIn.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Yeah, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really good, too.
Okay, well, yeah. You guys have a busy week coming up, and I know tonight is the Arvo gala and you have to get all dressed up as Kentucky Derby, right?
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yes. I have a big hat.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Diane has the most fabulous hat.
Thank you for your time. And obviously, they both. They know how to find both of you on LinkedIn.
[00:15:11] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: And, yeah, we appreciate you stopping to chat with us for a few minutes.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: And actually, before we go.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Can we tell them about how to apply for funding to bright focus?
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Of course. Yes, please do.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: All right, Preeti, you go ahead. It's your programs.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: So, we are going to open up to receive letter of intent for our macular degeneration program by end of May. It. You know, we offer postdoctoral fellowship if you are within four years of your terminal degree. We offer new investigative program if you're within ten years of your terminal degree. It's really to help anybody setting up their lab in AMD research. And then we have the innovative program, which is really looking for outside the box ideas in the field in AMD research.
And that's.
All of these are letter of intent. And the full proposal is by invitation only.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: And it's going to open up in a couple weeks.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Yeah. End of May 23.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And the deadline is July 25 for the letter of intent, and we have our glaucoma program, which will open up in June. And we have a postdoctoral fellowship and a standard award in our glaucoma program. And the deadline is October 25 of this year. So you can sign up for notifications on our website under apply for grants, and you will be notified once the RFP goes out.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: That's great. Yeah. And what does letter of intent entail? How long does it have to be?
[00:16:42] Speaker C: About two pages.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: About two pages.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: It's mostly. So what we look for is how innovative is the idea that's being proposed and how relevant it is to AMD. I see, yeah. So these are the two things we look for in the letter of intent.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:57] Speaker C: And then we get a little more technical and detailed once we get the full proposal.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Great. That's great. Thank you for mentioning that. Thank you for your time. Pre thing, Diane. Thank you. See you around, Seattle.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Thank you. Bye.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: I'll see you guys Monday at our breakfast. Absolutely.
