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Girard Foundation offers $250,000 for topical cataract treatment
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MAGNOLIA, Texas — A quarter-million-dollar prize is being offered for the development of a topical treatment for cataract.
The Louis J. Girard Ophthalmological Foundation has established a $250,000 prize for researchers who develop a topically applied zonulolytic agent to perform cataract displacement.
Louis J. Girard, MD, said the prize is for anyone who can find a zonulolytic agent with a molecule small enough to work with topical application, or for anyone who develops a method of causing one of the known zonulolytic proteases, such as chymotrypsin, to pass through the human cornea after topical application.
Dr. Girard said there is an insufficient number of ophthalmologists worldwide to operate on all patients with cataract, and the goal of his foundation is to provide a solution usable by nonphysician health care workers in developing countries. With a topically applied agent, he said, the health care workers would be able to administer the topical solution without the aid of an ophthalmologist, thus returning millions of people to the workforce.
For more information about the Foundation or the prize, go to http://www.girardprize.org.