Fliesler Recognized With 2025 AOCS Schroepfer Medal

By Dirk Hoffman

To honor the memory of George J. Schroepfer Jr., MD, PhD, a leader in the sterol and lipid field for more than 40 years, the award was established to recognize a scientist who has made significant and distinguished advances in the steroid field, which is defined to encompass sterols and other natural and synthetic compounds incorporating the tetracyclic gonane (fused phenanthrene) ring system.

The award aims to foster Schroepfer’s ideals of personal integrity, high scientific standards, perseverance and a strong spirit of survival, tempered by charm and wit.

The medal is typically awarded every other year. This one-of-a-kind sterol prize has been awarded to 12 internationally recognized academic scholars from the United States and Europe since its inception in 2002.

An internationally renowned vision scientist, Fliesler is considered the world’s leading expert on cholesterol metabolism in the retina.

His research was instrumental in describing for the first time the involvement of the lipid intermediate pathway in glycoprotein synthesis in the human retina and the importance of protein glycosylation for normal retinal photoreceptor cell differentiation. The lipid intermediate pathway shares some molecular constituents with the biochemical pathway used for cholesterol synthesis.

“I am extremely honored to have been recognized by the AOCS for my research over the past four decades in the area of cholesterol metabolism in the retina,” Fliesler says.

“This lifetime achievement award is particularly meaningful to me, because I performed my PhD research under the guidance of Professor George J. Schroepfer, for whom this award is named, at Rice University in Houston, Texas, many years ago. Professor Schroepfer was an internationally recognized expert in the field of cholesterol metabolism.”

W. David Nes, PhD, Paul W. Horn Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Texas Tech University, nominated Fliesler for the Schroepfer Medal.

He noted his “long-running career of nearly five decades (continuously funded as an independent PI for more than 40 years) in research broadly concerning biochemistry, sterol analytics (an area that Schroepfer loved and to which he contributed significantly over his illustrious career) and the function of cholesterol and other isoprenoids in the retina, resulting in about 150 peer-reviewed publications.”

“Steve has played a vital and exemplary role in enhancing the SUNY research, teaching and service enterprises and distinguished himself as a true scholar academically and in sterol research over the years and he will continue to do so during the continuation of his tenure funded by a current National of Institutes of Health grant,” Nes says.

“Clearly, the contributions of Steve to the sterol research community are truly outstanding, something I suspect George Schroepfer would be very proud of.”

Schroepfer, who died in 1998, founded the Department of Biochemistry at Rice University in 1972, where he made several major discoveries in the field of cholesterol biosynthesis during his career. Fliesler was among the first cohort of graduate students accepted for the biochemistry PhD program at Rice University.

“No one is more deserving of this award than Steve Fliesler. Steve has made important contributions to the understanding of Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS), a devastating disorder caused by mutations in a gene in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway,” says Ned A. Porter, PhD, professor emeritus of chemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Indeed, there is now what is known as “the Fliesler model” of the disorder, a pharmaceutically altered rodent that has been important in understanding the consequences of the perturbed cholesterol biosynthesis found in SLOS, Porter notes.

“It’s also noteworthy that Steve has played a prominent role in an organization of SLOS families that meets every few years. These meetings bring together affected SLOS individuals, their families, medical professionals who have SLOS patients and basic scientists with interests in sterol biochemistry,” Porter says.

“These meetings have been an important service for the SLOS families as well as the scientific community and Steve has taken on this important responsibility with energy and enthusiasm,” he adds. “It’s fair to say that these gatherings would have had much less impact if Steve had not taken on many of the tasks required.”

Fliesler serves as vice-chair/director of research in the Department of Ophthalmology in the Jacobs School. He also holds concurrent appointments as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and in the Neuroscience Program at the University at Buffalo, as well as being a Research Career Scientist at the Buffalo VA Medical Center (VA Western NY Healthcare System).

Fliesler has received multiple honors and awards, including a James S. Adams Scholar Award and a Senior Scientist Award from Research to Prevent Blindness, Silver-tier (2009) and Gold-tier (2014) Fellow of The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (FARVO), a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2014), was designated a UB Distinguished Professor (2014-18), was promoted to the rank of SUNY Distinguished Professor in 2018, was named the recipient of the Retina Research Foundation’s Paul Kayser International Award in Retina Research presented by the International Society for Eye Research in 2022, and was recognized as an Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Foundation honoree in 2024.

He obtained his doctoral degree in biochemistry from Rice University, did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cullen Eye Institute/Baylor College of Medicine, and was previously on the faculties of Baylor College of Medicine, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute/University of Miami School of Medicine, and Saint Louis University School of Medicine prior to joining the UB faculty in 2008. 

Fliesler received the Schroepfer Medal at the 2025 AOCS annual meeting April 27-30 in Portland, Oregon.