Christine Curcio, who holds the White-McKee Endowed Professorship in Ophthalmology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will receive the 2019 RPB David F. Weeks Award for Outstanding AMD Research. The Weeks Award, funded through Research to Prevent Blindness, an anonymous donor, and the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology, annually recognizes and celebrates an excellent researcher focused on age-related macular degeneration. Dr. Curcio will receive her award and deliver a presentation on January 31, 2020, at the annual meeting of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology in Rancho Mirage, California.
AMD is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in people over the age of 50. Dr. Curcio explains that “AMD is laid out in precise retinal layers and regions, now visible in living patients with modern imaging technology. A progression timeline of actionable, large biologic effects will make early treatment or even prevention feasible. The Weeks Award will assist this effort. I am truly honored.”
Professor Curcio joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1990. She is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in biology. She earned a Ph.D. in neurobiology and anatomy from the University of Rochester in New York.