How The Foundation Fighting Blindness Is Accelerating Research and Therapies For Blinding Retinal Diseases – Dr. Jacque Duncan
In this episode, Dr. Jacque Duncan provides an overview of how The Foundation Fighting Blindness is funding critical research that could impact millions of patients with inherited and degenerative retinal diseases. Dr. Duncan further describes her research focus which aims to preserve vision and stimulate visual function.
About the guest:
Jacque L. Duncan, M.D., Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology and Interim Chair, Department of Ophthalmmology, is the director of the Retinal Degenerations Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco. She graduated with distinction and honors from Stanford University, then spent a year doing research at the University of Colorado while she applied to medical school. She completed medical school, internship and ophthalmology residency at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Duncan completed a medical retina fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Drs. Stuart Fine and Samuel G. Jacobson. Her fellowship training focused on patients with age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal degenerations. She returned to join the ophthalmology faculty at UCSF in 2000.
Dr. Duncan has expertise in the diagnosis and management of patients with retinal degenerations including age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, cone-rod dystrophy and Stargardt disease. She has a strong interest in developing imaging and monitoring technologies to better evaluate both the progress of disease and the efficacy of emerging therapies. In collaboration with Austin Roorda, Ph.D., Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Optometry, and Joe Carroll, Ph.D., Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, she has studied cone photoreceptors in the eyes of patients with many different types of inherited retinal degeneration. Dr. Duncan has received funding to support her research from the Foundation Fighting Blindness, Research to Prevent Blindness, the National Eye Institute and the US Food and Drug Administration Office of Orphan Product Development, in addition to several sponsors of clinical trials for patients with inherited retinal degenerations. She has served as chair of the FFB Scientific Advisory Board since 2015. She has worked with FFB Leadership to launch the FFB Consortium which comprises over 40 clinical centers with expertise in the care and study of patients with inherited retinal degenerations.
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