Steven J. Fliesler, PhD, is an internationally recognized vision researcher who has been studying cholesterol metabolism in the retina for more than 30 years.
Noted UB Ophthalmology Researcher Gains Top ARVO Honor
Published December 10, 2013 This content is archived.
Story by Suzanne Kashuba
Steven J. Fliesler, PhD, Meyer H. Riwchun Endowed Chair Professor of ophthalmology, has been honored as a 2014 ARVO Gold Fellow by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, placing him in an elite group of international vision researchers.
“I’m extremely honored — as well as a bit surprised — to receive this special recognition,” says Fliesler. “It means I’m about to be included among the group of scientists I consider to be the ‘Who’s Who’ in the worldwide vision research community.”
The association’s gold-tier honorees represent the top 1 percent of its nearly 13,000 members from more than 80 countries, Fliesler notes.
International Vision Research Leader
Fliesler is an internationally recognized scientist and current president of the International Society for Eye Research who joined UB in 2008.
He is vice chair and director of research for UB’s Department of Ophthalmology. He also directs research for UB’s Ira G. Ross Eye Institute Vision Research Center, which is housed in the Buffalo VA Medical Center. Fliesler also is a research health scientist at the VA Western New York Healthcare System.
Fliesler has been a member of the Rockville, Md.-based ARVO for nearly 40 years and now chairs its Retinal Cell Biology Section and Publications Committee. Named a silver-tier fellow of the association’s inaugural 2009 class, he will be formally inducted as a gold fellow during the 2014 ARVO Annual Meeting, to be held May 4–8 in Orlando, Fla.
Pioneering Studies Explore Retinal Dysfunction
A prolific researcher, Fliesler has been studying cholesterol metabolism in the retina for more than 30 years.
For the past two decades, the National Institutes of Health has funded his pioneering studies into retinal dysfunction and degeneration associated with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome.