The Retina and its Disorders

Dr. Besharse is currently The Marvin Wagner Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He received his BA degree from Hendrix College (Conway, Arkansas) and MA and PhD degrees from Southern Illinois University. After a brief period on the faculty at Old Dominion University in Virginia, he moved to Columbia University as a post-doctoral fellow in retinal research. He was appointed to the faculty of Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy at Emory University School of Medicine in 1977, becoming full professor in 1984. He assumed the position of Professor and Chair of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University Kansas School of Medicine (Kansas City) in 1989 and moved on to his present position at Medical College of Wisconsin in 1997. Dr. Besharse's research has focused on membrane turnover, circadian clocks, and microtubule-based transport in photoreceptors with special attention to fundamental pathways that are disrupted in photoreceptor degenerative diseases. His research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1978. In addition to his roles as Department Chair and a principal investigator, he directs an NIH funded training program in Vision Science. Dr. Besharse is a past member of the editorial boards of Investigative Ophthalmology and Vision Science and Vision Neuroscience and served as the Retina Section Editor of Experimental Eye Research. He has served as a Trustee of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, and has served two full terms as a member of two different NIH study sections. Among his awards are the Alcon Research Award for outstanding research in Vision Science (1993), the Alumni Achievement Award from Southern Illinois University (1998) and the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (2005). He is a Gold Fellow of ARVO.