Jay Chhablani, MD, Receives Funding to Advance Macular Degeneration Research
July 27, 2026
Jay Chhablani, MD, professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and vice chair of clinical trials and director of clinical research at the UPMC Vision Institute, and a team of Pitt and UPMC researchers recently received Year 2 funding from the Edward N. & Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation for their project titled “Personalized Assembloid Platform for Drug Delivery and Modeling of Age-Related Macular Degeneration.”
Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, is a leading cause of vision loss in older adults. Macular degeneration causes central vision loss, making everyday tasks like reading, driving, and activities that require close-up vision difficult. While treatments exist to slow the progression of this condition, there is currently no cure.
Dr. Chhablani and his colleagues Ethan Rossi, PhD, Jonathan Vande Geest, PhD, Susana Isabel Morgado Mendes Antunes da Silva, PhD, and José-Alain Sahel, MD, will apply these critical funds to improve our understanding of AMD through the development of personalized assembloid models — or lab-grown tissue models that act like human organs — which will enable them to observe how AMD develops and evaluate targeted drug delivery approaches, all to improve patient outcomes.
Dr. Chhablani is a vitreo-retinal surgeon specializing in macular disorders; he has published more than 800 articles in peer-reviewed journals, serves on the review boards of several high-impact journals, including Science Translational Medicine and Lancet, and serves on the editorial board of several journals, including the American Journal of Ophthalmology. In July of 2026, he was inducted into the Retina Hall of Fame for his outstanding contributions to retina care, research, innovation, and education.
Learn more about Dr. Chhablani and his work.
