About the Gund Vision Fund

Renowned retinal surgeon, inventor and entrepreneur Dr. Eugene de Juan, Jr., serves as Vice-Chairman of ForSight Labs, where he participates as an active inventor and advisor in early-stage ophthalmic device opportunities.

Dr. de Juan, Jr., splits his time between ForSight Labs and UCSF.  He holds the “Jean Kelly Stock Distinguished Chair” in Ophthalmology.  UCSF recruited Dr. de Juan for this special role to augment translation of the many ideas being developed within the academic center.  He continues to see patients, operate and teach at UCSF.

Dr. de Juan, Jr., has participated in the development of a number of ophthalmology’s most exciting new technologies with over 100 products and the founding of nine venture funded companies including Second Sight, InnoRx, NeoVista, and Retina Labs, in addition to ForSight Labs’ first five “VISION” companies: Transcend Medical, Inc., founded in 2005; VISION2 (acquired by QLT, Inc. in 2007); Nexis Vision, Inc. (formerly ForSight VISION3, Inc.), founded in 2007; ForSight VISION4, Inc., founded in 2009; and ForSight VISION5, Inc., founded in 2010.

Prior to moving to San Francisco, Dr. de Juan, Jr., was a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Southern California and CEO of the Doheny Eye Institute, focusing on innovative techniques for treating blinding retinal disorders through retinal transplantation, macular translocation, robotic surgery, retinal implants, and other new procedures, medicines and instruments.

Prior to these positions, Dr. de Juan served at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was Co-Director of Vitreoretinal Service, Director of the Microsurgery Advanced Design Laboratory (MADLAB) and Joseph E. Green Professor of Ophthalmology. From 1983 to 1992, he was a member of the medical staff of the Duke University Eye Center, holding joint teaching appointments with the departments of ophthalmology and cell biology.

He is a passionate supporter of ophthalmic education and development and has recently helped established a chair for Ophthalmic Education at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. de Juan completed his medical degree and internship training at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine.  He served an internship at University of South Alabama Medical Center followed by a residency at the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute in Baltimore, MD, and a fellowship in vitreoretinal surgery at Duke University.  He holds patents on over sixty medical devices and is responsible for more than 250 academic publications.

Dr. de Juan was elected as Foundation Fighting Blindness National Trustee in 2014.

Jason Morris is an original board member and Vice Chair of the Retinal Degeneration Fund (RD Fund), the venture arm of the Foundation Fighting Blindness. He also serves as Board Chair of the Foundation itself, the global leading organization driving the discovery, development, and delivery of treatments and cures for people affected by blinding retinal diseases.

Since joining the Foundation's Board of Directors in 2017, Morris has contributed to board-level strategy, governance, finance, development, and capital campaign leadership in roles including Executive Vice Chair, Treasurer, Chapter President, and National Trustee, applying his deep knowledge in governance and finance to drive the RD Fund’s mission of funding life-changing cures.

Morris first connected with the Foundation in 2009 after his son was diagnosed at age five with CRB1-associated retinitis pigmentosa. What began as a local chapter meeting in St. Louis has transformed into participation in 17 VisionWalk events and more than a decade of chapter fundraising, including 14 years of annual dinner events. The Morris family has helped raise over $7 million to advance research, expand community engagement, and further the Foundation's mission.

Morris is also a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of experience in organizational growth, financial performance, and strategic transformation across complex, multi-entity businesses. He currently serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of Courtesy Products, LLC, a $55 million manufacturer and distributor serving the hospitality industry throughout the United States and Canada. Earlier in his career, he served as Chief Administrative Officer for a $2 billion consumer goods organization, led a $100 million travel goods company, and held leadership roles spanning business development, product strategy, global sourcing, and intellectual property across more than 70 countries. His background also includes early career experience in investment banking and participation in the sale of two businesses.

Morris earned a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University, with a concentration in leadership. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife Leslie, where he stays busy with family, friends, and visiting their two children in college. 

Tony co-discovered the role of VEGF in ocular vascular disease and helped lead the development of the first anti-VEGF drugs for nAMD (pegaptanib), DME, DR and RVO (ranibizumab). Anti-VEGF drugs have reduced legal blindness from nAMD and DR by half around the world. At Genentech, Tony helped guide the successful development of the first anti-VEGF long acting delivery technology (port delivery system) and the first bispecific antibody (BEGF/Ang2) for retinal disease.

Dr. Jean Bennett is the F.M. Kirby Emeritus Professor of Ophthalmology at the Perelman School of Medicine and previously served as director of the Center for Advanced Retinal and Ocular Therapeutics (CAROT) at the University of Pennsylvania.  In addition to Dr. Bennett’s positions at the University of Pennsylvania, she has been an Investigator at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for more than a decade.  She also co-founded life science companies Spark Therapeutics (acquired by Roche), GenSight Biologics and Limelight Bio.  She was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Bennett received her Ph.D. in Zoology and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkley, and obtained an M.D. from Harvard University.  She also completed postdoctoral fellowships in Radiobiology and Environmental Health at the University of California, San Francisco, Human Genetics at Yale School of Medicine and Development Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  She received her B.S. in Biology from Yale University.

Dr. Bennett serves as Director for Opus Genetics and REGENXBIO.

Mark S. Blumenkranz, M.D., MMS, is HJ Smead Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University and Co-Director of its Ophthalmic Innovation Program. He received his Undergraduate, Master’s degree in Biochemical Pharmacology, and MD at Brown, his surgical internship and ophthalmic residency at Stanford and a fellowship in vitreoretinal diseases at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute where he was appointed a member of the faculty in 1980. In 1985 he founded the Retinal Fellowship Training Program at the William Beaumont Eye Institute. He returned to Stanford in 1992 as head of the vitreoretinal service and served as Department Chair from 1997 until 2015. He completed the Stanford Executive Program at the Graduate School of Business in 2004. He played a leading role in the planning, fundraising and construction of the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford and served as founding Director from its opening in September 2010 through June 2015.

He has served on the Editorial Boards of The American Journal of Ophthalmology, Retina, Ophthalmology, and Graefe’s Archives for Ophthalmology. He is a past President of the American University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO), and a past President of the Retina Society and the Macula Society. He was an inaugural member of the Steering Committee of the Audacious Goals Initiative of the NEI, and a Trustee and Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from 2002 until 2019 where he was the Chair of the Corporation Medical School Committee for eleven years. He is the recipient of multiple awards in the fields including the Heed Foundation Award, the Jackson Award Lecture from the AJO, the Schepens Award Lecture from the AAO, the Gass Award Lecture from the Retina Society, the William Green Award Lecture from the Macula Society, the Wacker Prize from the Club Jules Gonin, the WW Keen Award from Brown University, and the Albion Walter Hewlett Award Lecture from Stanford Medicine amongst other others.

Dr. Blumenkranz was an early innovator in vitrectomy techniques to treat complex forms of retinal detachment. He helped to usher in the modern era of intravitreal and surgical adjuvant drug therapy with laboratory and clinical studies identifying 5- fluorouracil and low molecular weight heparin as potent agents to inhibit ocular scarring. He was a member of the group that first reported the herpetic etiology and successful acyclovir treatment of acute retinal necrosis, the use of bio-erodible polymers to deliver intraocular steroids for macular edema and was an author on the first human safety studies of ranibizumab (Lucentis) and gene therapy based anti-VEGF therapy for age related macular degeneration using a modified AAV vector and the transgene for aflibercept. He has published more than one hundred and seventy five papers in peer-reviewed journals and multiple book chapters, abstracts and patents in the field.

He has a longstanding interest and expertise in university corporate technology transfer. He was a Director and principal trial designer at Oculex Pharmaceuticals who were acquired by Allergan in 2003. He served as a co-founder, Director and Chairman of the SAB of Macusight, an ophthalmic pharmaceutical company, acquired by Santen in 2010.  He was a founder and director of Peak Surgical, an innovator in pulsed plasma mediated electro-surgery that was acquired by Medtronics in 2011. In 2004 he co-founded Optimedica Corporation for which he co-wrote the foundational IP for the PASCAL and Catalys lasers, and which was acquired by AMO and subsequently J&J. In 2006 he co-founded and served as Chairman of the Board of Adverum Biotechnologies (ADVM:NASDAQ) until October 2016. He was a co-founder and director of Oculeve, a dry eye company which was acquired by Allergan in August of 2015. He was a founder and served as a Director of Verana Health (formerly Digisight Technologies) a digital medicine and health analytics company from 2009 until 2020. He served as the founding Chairman of Kedalion Therapeutics an ophthalmic drug delivery company from 2015 until 2022, and CEO from 2019 until 2022, when it was acquired by Novartis AG. He served as the founding Chairman of Combangio Inc, a topical ophthalmic biopharmaceutical company prior to its acquisition by Kala Therapeutics in 2021. He is a scientific founder of Eudora an ophthalmic gene therapy company.  He also currently serves as a director BVI Visitec, an ophthalmic surgical company, One Medical (ONEM:NASDAQ), Iveric Bio (ISEE:NASDAQ), Kala Therapeutics (KALA:NASDAQ), and the Managing Partner of Lagunita Biosciences LLC an early stage medical investment company.

He is a co-founder and the current president of the Collaborative Community on Ophthalmic Imaging Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization formed to clarify challenges, best practices, strategies and standards while advancing innovation in the ophthalmic imaging space.

Catherine Bowes Rickman, Ph.D. is a professor of ophthalmology and of cell biology in the Duke Eye Center at Duke University in Durham, NC.

Catherine leads a team of researchers focusing on developing and using mouse models to understand the pathobiology of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and on developing and testing therapeutic targets for AMD. She has a long-standing interest in the molecular and cell biology and pathology of the retina. Amongst her seminal discoveries was the identification of the gene responsible for retinal degeneration in the rd (rd1) mouse. She has applied her expertise in mouse genetics to develop multifactorial models to demonstrate AMD risk based on lipid or complement dysregulation, aging and diet. Distinctively, these models provide valuable tools for the better understanding pathology in AMD and testing of novel AMD therapeutics.

Dr. Jacque Duncan is an ophthalmologist at UCSF Medical Center who specializes in treating retina degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa, which affects one in 3,500 people worldwide; and age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in people over age 50 in the U.S. Both conditions run in families and currently have no cure.  Her expertise includes the diagnosis and treatment of retinal diseases such as Usher syndrome, cone-rod dystrophy and Stargardt disease, a form of macular degeneration that develops in childhood, and the use of experimental techniques to slow or prevent these conditions.

In her research, she is studying treatments to preserve vision and to use devices to stimulate visual perception in patients.  She has received research funding from Research to Prevent Blindness, Karl Kirchgessner Foundation, Hope for Vision, and American Geriatrics Society in addition to a Career Development Award from the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

Dr. Duncan earned a medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco, where she completed an ophthalmology residency.  She also completed a medical retina fellowship at the Scheie Eye Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, where she focused on patients with age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal degeneration.  She returned to UCSF and joined the faculty in 2000.  She is a professor of clinical ophthalmology at UCSF.  Dr. Duncan is chair of the Foundation Fighting Blindness Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Adrienne Graves is a visual scientist by training and a global industry leader in ophthalmology. As the former CEO of Santen Inc., the US subsidiary of a 130-year-old Japanese pharmaceutical company, she successfully established a strong global presence, brought multiple ophthalmic products through development to approval and commercialization, and led global teams through successful acquisitions and partnerships. At Santen, Dr. Graves served as Sr. VP of Worldwide Clinical Development (US, Europe, and Japan) for 7 years and CEO for 8 years. Prior to Santen, she spent 9 years at Alcon, joining as Sr. Scientist to establish Alcon's first Retinal Electrophysiology Laboratory. She progressed through roles of increasing responsibility in R&D, including directing clinical development in multiple therapeutic areas and serving as Director of International Ophthalmology.

Dr. Graves currently serves as an Independent Director on the boards of Iveric, Akorn, Inc, Nicox S.A., Surface Pharmaceuticals, Oxurion, and Greenbrook TMS Healthcare. She previously held board positions at Encore Vision (2011–2017; acquired by Novartis), Envisia Therapeutics (2014–2017; assets acquired by Aerie Pharmaceuticals), TearLab Corporation (2005–2018), and Aerpio Therapeutics (2012–2017). Dr. Graves also serves as Director on the following Foundation Boards: American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) Foundation, Foundation Fighting Blindness and Foundation Fighting Blindness Retinal Degeneration Fund, Glaucoma Research Foundation, American Academy of Ophthalmology Foundation (Emeritus), Retina Global, Himalayan Cataract Project. She co-founded OWL (Ophthalmic World Leaders) and Glaucoma 360. 

Dr. Graves received an AB with Honors in Psychology from Brown University, a Ph.D. in Psychobiology/Neuroscience from the University of Michigan, and she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Visual Neuroscience at the University of Paris.

Suber S. Huang, MD, MBA, FASRS is CEO of the Retina Center of Ohio, Voluntary Assistant Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami, and Hong Leung Hong Leong Visiting Professor of Ophthalmology, National University of Singapore. He is the Founder/CEO/Executive Producer of the Future Vision Foundation, whose mission celebrates breakthrough vision research through powerful documentaries of discovery, impact, and hope. He created the first-in-kind Future Vision Forum to bring visionary leaders in basic, translational, and clinical research together to seek new directions that accelerate discovery and innovation in vision research. He is on the Board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, Retina Global, Cleveland Sight Center, and founder of Cell Sight Therapeutics and SH Creative Arts, LLC.

He received his undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University, a medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, an ophthalmology residency at the Wilmer Eye Institute/Johns Hopkins University, and a fellowship in Vitreoretinal Diseases and Surgery from Bascom Palmer Eye Institute/University of Miami. He has graduate training at Harvard University, Wharton School of Business/University of Pennsylvania, and received his Executive MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management/CWRU.

Dr. Huang was formerly President of the American Society of Retina Specialists, Chair of the Foundation of the ASRS, AAO Associate Secretariat of Federal Affairs, and Chair of the Research, Regulatory, and External Scientific Affairs Committee. From 1993-2014, Dr. Huang’s leadership positions in the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences include: Philip and Elizabeth Searle – -Suber Huang MD Professor and Vice-Chair, Residency Program Director, and Director, Center for Retina and Macular Disease. He founded the Retina Diseases Image Analysis Reading Center and was Director of the Visual Sciences Research Center.

Dr. Huang has participated in numerous clinical trials as PI and as Director of the Retina Disease Image Analysis Reading Center at CWRU. He has published widely, given nearly 400 lectures, and has served as Program Chair for retina surgery for the APAO and AAO Retina sub-specialty day. He is/was DMC Chair for the Argus II retina and Orion cortical vision implant programs, ongoing gene therapy trials, stem cell transplant trials in atrophic AMD, and for the world’s largest trial of triple therapy for onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis. He has active research interests in surgical innovation, gene- and cell-based therapy, and the immunoregulatory properties of stem cells, and was Chair, of the National Eye Health Education Program, NEI/NIH.

Dr. Huang founded the ASRS Retina Image Bank, now the world’s largest and most comprehensive open-access multimedia database of “all things retina”. With over 40,000 images contributed, this site links expertise around the world. In 2023, the Image Bank exceeded three million cumulative page views and has been used in 194 countries representing 99.2% of the world’s population. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the online ASRS Retina Atlas which launched in 2021 and aspires to be the world’s most comprehensive, up-to-date, and continuously iteratively resource for retina knowledge. He is a founding officer of Retina Global an international organization focused on providing sustainable solutions to retinal disease management around the world. Dr. Huang is the AAO representative to the United States Pharmacopeia. He is a Director, Life Trustee, and bioscience advisor to the Anderson Scholars program at the University School.

Dr. Huang is an inductee to the Retina Hall of Fame, has received the “Top Doctors”, and “Best Doctors in America” awards each year since 2003, the AAO Secretariat (2), Senior Honor Awards, ASRS Presidential, Senior Achievement and Honor Awards. He received the APAO Jose Rizal International Medal, APVRS International Award, Chinese Vitreo-Retinal Society Senior Honor Award, Vitreo-Retinal Society of India President’s Award, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine/Wilmer Eye Institute Distinguished Alumnus Award, CWRU Department of Ophthalmology Attending of the Year and cherishes the CWRU Humanism in Medicine award given to the faculty member who most demonstrates compassion and professionalism in the care of patients and their families. Other awards include the Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital Pediatric Innovation, OPS J. Donald M. Gass MD award, International Congress of Ophthalmic Photographers, the National Diversity Council Leadership Excellence Award, and the Cleveland Sight Center Person of the Year. Dr. Huang has produced 12 documentary films including Seven Years of Darkness (best short documentary, National Short Film Festival) and Candle in the Distance (Rhett Buckler award, ASRS Film Fest). In 2023, received the Fight for Sight Vision Research Advocate Award and the ASRS Packo award, given for extraordinary service to the Society and the profession.

Ms. Lisbakken is a Managing Director and the Head of Biopharma Investment Banking at Wedbush PacGrow.  She has been with the firm since 2004 and completed over 200 transactions totaling over $20 billion during her tenure.  Ms. Lisbakken has extensive experience with strategic assignments, private placements, IPOs, follow on offerings, PIPEs, reverse mergers and ATMs for biotechnology and specialty pharmaceutical companies including several eye care organizations.  Prior to Wedbush, she worked at ICOS (now part of Eli Lilly) on Cialis and the PDE4 program.  

Ms. Lisbakken holds an AB in Molecular Biology from Princeton University where she completed her thesis under the direction of Dr. Thomas Shenk, the Elkins Professor in the Life Sciences and former board member of Merck & Co

José-Alain Sahel, M.D., is distinguished professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, Eye & Ear Foundation Endowed Chair University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and adjunct professor of Robotics and Bioengineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He is an exceptional class professor of Ophthalmology at Sorbonne Université and was the founding director of The Vision Institute (Sorbonne Université, Inserm, CNRS) Paris, France (till 31 December 2020). He headed the French National Reference Center for Rare Retinal Dystrophies and the Paris Ophthalmology Clinical Investigation Center (2006-2020), overseeing more than 80 clinical trials, some of them within the most advanced areas of biomedical technologies (retinal implants, gene therapy, stem cell therapy, optogenetics).

Dr. Sahel is a clinician-scientist conducting research on vision restoration focusing on cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying retinal degeneration and development of treatments for currently untreatable retinal diseases. He co-authored over 680 peer-reviewed articles and 40 patents. He was a founder of Fovea pharmaceuticals, which became the ophthalmological division of Sanofi, and is a scientific co-founder of StreetLab (visual adaptation and rehabilitation), GenSight Biologics (gene therapy) and Pixium Vision (artificial retina), among other biotech companies. 

Dr. Sahel is recipient of numerous awards including the Foundation Fighting Blindness Llura Liggett Gund Award, Alcon Research Institute Award for Excellence in Vision Research, Grand Prix NRJ-Neurosciences-Institut de France, Foundation Fighting Blindness Llura Liggett Gund Award, Charpak-Dubousset Award, Médaille Grand Vermeil, Ville de Paris, 2021 Breakthrough in the Life Sciences - Falling Walls Foundation, Berlin, Germany. 

He was elected to the: Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis, Académie des Sciences-Institut de France, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, National Academy of Technologies of France, Association of American Physicians and American Ophthalmology Society. Dr. Sahel is Honoris Causa doctorate of University of Geneva and held the Technological Innovation Chair at the Collège de France (2015-2016). He is a member of several editorial scientific advisory boards, including Science Translational Medicine.

Warren is the former President of Gund Investment Corporation, where he led investment activities for Gordon Gund.  Typical investments included: direct private equity investments, fund investments, and public equities. 

Warren is an early investor and serves on the board of several companies including Align Technology, the maker of “Invisalign” (an alternative to traditional wire and bracket orthodontics).  Warren served on the board of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Gund Arena Company for 15 years and was the franchise’s Alternative Governor on the National Basketball Association’s Board of Governors from 2000 until 2005.  Other privately-held Gund corporations Warren has had operational and board of director’s responsibilities with include: Nationwide Advertising Services (a recruitment advertising agency), JobOptions (an internet job board) and Gus Hotel Management Corporation (an operator of Sheraton hotels in Silicon Valley).

Warren is an early investor and board member in ARdVRk Technologies, Inc.  ARdVRk Technologies focuses on developing augmented and virtual reality apps for healthcare, life sciences and medical device companies.  In addition, Warren serves on the board of One Focus Vision and Forsight Vision 6, and serves as a trustee of The Baldwin School, a K-12 private girls school in the Philadelphia area.

Prior to joining Gordon Gund in 1990, Warren worked in the Corporate Finance Department of Drexel Burnham Lambert. 

Warren has been involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness since 1998.  Neither he nor anyone in his family is affected by a retinal disease.  Warren is actively involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness events in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Orange County and Boston. 

Warren is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, Princeton University and Groton School. 

Rusty Kelley is the managing director and principal officer of the Foundation Fighting Blindness’s venture arm, the Retinal Degeneration Fund (RD Fund),.  Kelley helped launch the RD Fund in 2018 and brings over 25 years of experience in identifying, funding, and developing biotechnologies to his leadership role.  Kelley is on the Executive Leadership team of the Foundation and is currently a Board director of SparingVision and Nacuity and a Board observer for Atsena Therapeutics, Perceive Bio, and Amber Bio.  Kelley was also a founding Board director of Opus Genetics and previously served as a Board observer for Stargazer Pharmaceuticals and Vedere Bio II.

Before the RD Fund, Kelley directed the translational and interdisciplinary science funding portfolios at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.  Kelley previously served on the bench as a scientist, then as a director and head of preclinical at Tengion, a tissue engineering spinout of Boston Children’s Hospital and Wake Forest University.  Earlier in his career, Kelley served on the bench in analytical chemistry and in formulation development in the divisions of Wet Chemistry and Pharmaceutics at AAIPharma, and then in clinical development at PPD, Inc., where he helped develop and manage clinical trials in the divisions of Medicine, NIH trials, and Infectious Disease.

Kelley earned a BA in Chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill and a PhD in Pharmacology at LSU’s Health Sciences Center in New Orleans.  Kelley then trained as a postdoc fellow in the School of Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill, where he was awarded an American Heart Association fellowship.  Kelley also earned an executive MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Grace Warner is a dynamic financial strategist located in Las Vegas, Nevada who is most passionate about directing investment capital towards impactful missions. Ms. Warner holds a Master’s degree in Finance focused on Venture Capital and Private Equity from the International University of Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. She most recently held the position of Venture Officer at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority where she supported the investment activities of their $300M Evergreen Fund. In her early career, she contributed to a number of high-growth technology startups and non-profits across the US and EU in both product innovation and business development roles.

Jason Menzo is the chief executive officer at the Foundation Fighting Blindness, the world’s largest private funder of research for finding treatments and cures of a variety of blinding retinal degenerative diseases. The Foundation has raised over $891 million since its inception, and is currently funding 81 research projects, and more than 35 clinical trials globally.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Jason was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and subsequently the Business Unit Head for Sun Ophthalmics. He was one of four founding members of Sun Ophthalmics, and helped to build it from the ground up and into the well-known entity it is today.

He was also a founding member of Nicox, Inc. where he led the commercial launches of three ophthalmic brands. He has previously held positions of increasing responsibility with Bausch + Lomb and Inspire Pharmaceuticals.

Peter Ginsberg is chief operating officer for Foundation Fighting Blindness. In that role, Mr. Ginsberg oversees the development of financial plans and processes while providing leadership on business transactions, strategic planning, and new activities aimed at creating novel revenue streams across the Foundation Fighting Blindness and RD Fund. He led record-setting transactions during his tenure with large and small biopharmaceutical companies and has worked extensively within ophthalmology, inspired by his long-time mentor who has retinitis pigmentosa.

Most recently, Mr. Ginsberg served as vice president of business development at Savara Pharmaceuticals (SVRA), an orphan lung disease company. Previously, he headed business development for BioDelivery Sciences (BDSI), United Therapeutics (UTHR) and SurModics (SRDX). Ginsberg also served as VP of business & technology development for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, where his group financed and advised emerging life science companies. He further spent 15 years in the healthcare investment industry, during which time he was named a Wall Street Journal All-Star as Piper Jaffray’s lead biotechnology analyst.

Ginsberg serves as a board member for First Flight Venture Center and is a Chartered Financial Analyst and member of the CFA Institute. He earned an A.B. in Economics from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Dr. Amy Laster is the chief scientific officer at the Foundation Fighting Blindness, the driving force in the global development of treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases. With over $954 million raised to date, the Foundation supports more than 100 research projects worldwide under Dr. Laster’s leadership.

A neuroscientist by training, Dr. Laster directs the Foundation’s scientific strategy, collaborating with the Scientific Advisory Board, Board of Directors, academic institutions, biotech and pharmaceutical companies, venture funding entities, government agencies, and key research donors. She is responsible for the overarching scientific strategy for the Foundation, including the preclinical and early translational research programs, ensuring the Foundation remains at the forefront of innovation.

Dr. Laster has conducted significant research on neuroregeneration following acute injury and the causes of neurological monogenic diseases. She serves on the executive committee of the Health Research Alliance Board of Directors and the ClinGen Retina Ocular Clinical Domain Working Group. Her dedication to advancing science reflects the Foundation’s commitment to finding cures for blinding retinal diseases.

To partner with the Gund Vision Fund, contact Judy Taylor, SVP, Chief Philanthropy Officer at JTaylor@FightingBlindness.org or (216) 235-3024.

Judy Taylor is SVP, Chief Philanthropy Officer at the Foundation Fighting Blindness, where she leads enterprise-level fundraising strategy, including the RD Fund Campaign, international initiatives, and transformational giving. A results-driven executive with more than 30 years of nonprofit leadership experience, she is recognized for building high-performing development teams, designing innovative revenue programs, and aligning philanthropic strategy with mission-critical outcomes.

Since rejoining the Foundation in 2019—after previously serving as Regional Director of Development from 2006 to 2013—Judy has strengthened fundraising infrastructure, expanded major and principal gift portfolios, and advanced global partnerships that drive research progress and donor engagement.

Prior to returning to the Foundation, Judy served as Executive Director of the ALS Association's DC/MD/VA Chapter, where she established strategic priorities, exceeded fundraising targets, and spearheaded the creation of the chapter's first Assistive Technology Labs—including a mobile unit—to expand access for individuals and families affected by ALS. Earlier in her career, she served as Development Director at the AIDS Taskforce in Cleveland, Ohio.

Throughout her career, Judy has demonstrated a distinctive ability to design and execute philanthropic programs that increase revenue, deepen donor investment, and directly advance mission outcomes.