José-Alain Sahel, Distinguished Professor, Eye & Ear Foundation Professor and Chair, Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, and director of the UPMC Vision Institute, along with his colleague Botond Roska, formally accepted the prestigious 2024 Wolf Prize in Medicine at a ceremony in Israel on June 18.
One of the world’s most prestigious awards in science, the Wolf Prize recognizes Sahel and Roska, of the Institute for Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel, for their work to restore sight using optogenetics, a groundbreaking approach that uses light-sensitive proteins to help restore vision in patients with inherited retinal degenerative diseases.
Sahel is the first Pitt faculty member and the first ophthalmologist to receive this honor.
Sahel and Roska have collaborated in the field of optogenetics for many years. In 2021, the pair published, with collaborators at the Paris Institut de la Vision, which Sahel founded and directed, a groundbreaking study in Nature Medicine that outlined the first instance of partial vision restoration in a human patient. This is the first-ever published clinical application of optogenetics; the trial was conducted in Paris, London and Pittsburgh.
“We are immensely excited about Dr. Sahel's research not only for its enormous potential to restore sight in patients with degenerative eye disease, but also for the insights it adds to the field,” said Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of the School of Medicine at Pitt. “The international awareness the Wolf Prize brings to this breakthrough science will in turn help advance the work of scientists globally aiming to cure blindness.”
Since 1978, the Wolf Foundation has awarded the Wolf Prize to scientists and artists to recognize outstanding achievements that contribute to the betterment of humanity. An international committee reviews nominations each year and selects the prize laureates. Sahel and Roska join a distinguished group of more than 380 scientists and artists from around the world whose work transcends societal barriers and aims to improve the human experience.
Accompanying Sahel to receive the award were Pitt faculty members Joseph Martel, associate professor of ophthalmology, School of Medicine and director, clinical research innovations, and Boris Rosin, assistant professor of ophthalmology; two board members of the Eye & Ear Foundation, Louis Fox and George Fechter; and Herb and Barbara Shear, major donors to the Eye & Ear Foundation and the Department of Ophthalmology.