BioAxone BioSciences’ Scientific Advisory Board Member, Mark Bear, PhD, Receives $500,000 Beckman-Argyros Vision Research Award

BioAxone BioSciences announced that its Scientific Advisory Board member, Mark Bear, PhD, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received the prestigious Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation 2018 Beckman-Argyros Vision Research Award.

This annual award recognizes an individual who has made and is continuing to make significant, transformative breakthroughs in vision research. Over several decades of research, Dr. Bear has made significant contributions to understanding the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in the cerebral cortex. The award recognizes his work on the visual cortex and childhood amblyopia. Dr. Bear and his team have shown that vision loss in the weak eye can be reversed in multiple preclinical models of amblyopia, overturning the dogma that the loss of vision is permanent. His findings have relevance to the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in general, including changes in synaptic plasticity that occur in neurotrauma.

“We are delighted to see that Dr. Bear’s decades of research on synaptic plasticity is being honored by such an internationally recognized organization,” Lisa McKerracher, PhD, CEO, BioAxone BioSciences, said in a company news release. “His expertise and counsel as one of our long-time scientific advisory board members has been enormously valuable as we develop transformative treatments for neurotrauma and neurovascular disorders.”