The Greater Milwaukee Foundation awarded a four-year, $300,000 grant to the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Eye Institute to help prevent vision loss in premature infants.
An estimated one in every 100 children who enter the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at birth will go blind due to a disease called retinopathy of prematurity. The grant from the foundation’s Russell J. and Betty Jane Shaw Fund will support the efforts of doctor Deborah Costakos and Joseph Carroll, co-director of the institute’s Advanced Ocular Imaging Program, to more closely study the development of the premature retina and refine technology used in neonatal intensive care unit eye screenings. The institute is one of only two hospitals in the world with imaging technology sophisticated enough to examine the eyes of premature children.
“This project provides Wisconsin with access to cutting-edge diagnostic technology that will improve the future quality of life for children in this state and beyond,” said Jeannie Fenceroy, senior program officer and administrator of the Shaw Fund.
