Dr. Dean Bok, PhD.
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SEATTLE—Noted vision researcher Dean Bok, PhD. of UCLA has been awarded the 2016 Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research. Keller Johnson-Thompson, a member of the Helen Keller family, presented the prize at a ceremony here on Tuesday that coincided with the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

Dr. Bok was honored for more than four decades of discoveries in the field of retinal cell biology. He has greatly advanced the scientific study of molecular complexes in the retinal pigment epithelium.

“It is a profound honor to be named a Helen Keller Laureate. Blind and deaf from the age of 19 months, Helen Keller represents the ultimate in faith, insight, compassion, tolerance, eloquence and persistence,” said Dr. Bok, the distinguished research professor of ophthalmology and neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Bok is also a member of the Brain Research Institute of UCLA and a member and Dolly Green Chair of Ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute of UCLA.

The Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research was established in 1994 by the Helen Keller Foundation for Research and Education, which was founded in 1988 by Helen Keller’s family and scientists dedicated to fighting blindness. The presenting sponsor of the prize, BrightFocus Foundation, is a nonprofit organization supporting research and public awareness to help conquer the brain and eye diseases of Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration and glaucoma.