About the RD Fund

Dr. Adrienne Graves is a visual scientist by training and a global industry leader in ophthalmology. As the former CEO of Santen Inc., the US subsidiary of a 130-year-old Japanese pharmaceutical company, she successfully established a strong global presence, brought multiple ophthalmic products through development to approval and commercialization, and led global teams through successful acquisitions and partnerships. At Santen, Dr. Graves served as Sr. VP of Worldwide Clinical Development (US, Europe, and Japan) for 7 years and CEO for 8 years. Prior to Santen, she spent 9 years at Alcon, joining as Sr. Scientist to establish Alcon's first Retinal Electrophysiology Laboratory. She progressed through roles of increasing responsibility in R&D, including directing clinical development in multiple therapeutic areas and serving as Director of International Ophthalmology.

Dr. Graves currently serves as an Independent Director on the boards of Iveric, Akorn, Inc, Nicox S.A., Surface Pharmaceuticals, Oxurion, and Greenbrook TMS Healthcare. She previously held board positions at Encore Vision (2011–2017; acquired by Novartis), Envisia Therapeutics (2014–2017; assets acquired by Aerie Pharmaceuticals), TearLab Corporation (2005–2018), and Aerpio Therapeutics (2012–2017). Dr. Graves also serves as Director on the following Foundation Boards: American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) Foundation, Foundation Fighting Blindness and Foundation Fighting Blindness Retinal Degeneration Fund, Glaucoma Research Foundation, American Academy of Ophthalmology Foundation (Emeritus), Retina Global, Himalayan Cataract Project. She co-founded OWL (Ophthalmic World Leaders) and Glaucoma 360. 

Dr. Graves received an AB with Honors in Psychology from Brown University, a Ph.D. in Psychobiology/Neuroscience from the University of Michigan, and she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Visual Neuroscience at the University of Paris.

Karen Petrou is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Federal Financial Analytics, Inc., a privately-held company that since 1985 has provided analytical and advisory services on legislative, regulatory, and public-policy issues affecting financial services companies doing business in the U.S. and abroad.  Petrou is a frequent speaker on topics affecting the financial services industry.  In addition to testifying before the U.S. Congress, she has spoken before the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Chicago, the European Central Bank, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the International Monetary Fund, the Clearing House, the Bank Policy Institute, the Institute of International Bankers, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Japanese Diet, and many other governmental, industry and academic groups. Petrou is the author of the book Engine of Inequality, the Fed and the future of wealth in America. She has also authored numerous articles in publications such as the American Banker and the Financial Times, and is frequently quoted as a bank policy expert in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Politico, the Hill, and other media outlets.

Prior to founding her own firm in 1985, Petrou worked in Washington as an officer at Bank of America, where she began her career in 1977. She is an honors graduate in Political Science from Wellesley College and also was a special student in an honors program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned an M.A. in that subject from the University of California at Berkeley, and was a doctoral candidate there. She has served on the boards of banking organizations and now sits as a director on the board of the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, and is the incoming chair of the board of directors of the Foundation Fighting Blindness. In 2019, she and her late husband Basil were named “visionaries” by the Foundation Fighting Blindness and received the Berman award in 2022.  These reflect the Petrou’s work not only for vision research, but also development of a new financial instrument that would provide billions for biomedical research in all diseases, disabilities, and disorders.

David Brint is CEO of Brinshore Development Company, where he is responsible for Brinshore’s real estate development, acquisitions, development financing, equity syndication, and property management activities.  David has arranged over $1 billion in complex financial transactions utilizing a variety of tools including: tax exempt bonds, Federal HOPE VI, CDBG, Empowerment Zone and HOME funds, mortgage-based and cash-flow loans, credit enhancements, Historic and Low Income Tax Credits, TIF financing, and assorted grant programs.  These creative financing tools have been used to leverage public and private resources and have enabled the development of over 4,000 units of successful affordable housing.

David, on behalf of Brinshore Development, is also the Midwest Regional representative and Vice President for the Richman Group Capital Corporation, L.L.C., a national syndicator of low income housing tax credits.  He oversees all of the due diligence, market rate analysis, and acquisition closing for the company's Midwest region, which has amounted to over $300 million since 1994.

David previously served as Board President of the Foundation for Retinal Research, which he co-founded and which has now merged with Foundation Fighting Blindness.  He is also a board member of a number of non-profit institutions including Director of the Illinois Housing Council, Director of The Chicago Lighthouse for People Who are Blind and Visually Impaired and Director of Kids Can Do Foundation.  He is a former member of the Chicago Federal Home Loan Bank Board Community Investment Advisory Council, and Founding Member and past Director of Highland Park Community Land Trust.  He formerly served as Board President of the Victor C. Neumann Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving developmentally disabled individuals.

David received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

David has been involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness since 1998; his son Alan is affected with LCA.  David is actively involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness events in the Chicago area.

Tony co-discovered the role of VEGF in ocular vascular disease and helped lead the development of the first anti-VEGF drugs for nAMD (pegaptanib), DME, DR and RVO (ranibizumab). Anti-VEGF drugs have reduced legal blindness from nAMD and DR by half around the world. At Genentech, Tony helped guide the successful development of the first anti-VEGF long acting delivery technology (port delivery system) and the first bispecific antibody (BEGF/Ang2) for retinal disease.

Dr. Jean Bennett is the F.M. Kirby Emeritus Professor of Ophthalmology at the Perelman School of Medicine and previously served as director of the Center for Advanced Retinal and Ocular Therapeutics (CAROT) at the University of Pennsylvania.  In addition to Dr. Bennett’s positions at the University of Pennsylvania, she has been an Investigator at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for more than a decade.  She also co-founded life science companies Spark Therapeutics (acquired by Roche), GenSight Biologics and Limelight Bio.  She was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Bennett received her Ph.D. in Zoology and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkley, and obtained an M.D. from Harvard University.  She also completed postdoctoral fellowships in Radiobiology and Environmental Health at the University of California, San Francisco, Human Genetics at Yale School of Medicine and Development Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  She received her B.S. in Biology from Yale University.

Dr. Bennett serves as Director for Opus Genetics and REGENXBIO.

Mark S. Blumenkranz, M.D., MMS, is HJ Smead Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University and Co-Director of its Ophthalmic Innovation Program. He received his Undergraduate, Master’s degree in Biochemical Pharmacology, and MD at Brown, his surgical internship and ophthalmic residency at Stanford and a fellowship in vitreoretinal diseases at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute where he was appointed a member of the faculty in 1980. In 1985 he founded the Retinal Fellowship Training Program at the William Beaumont Eye Institute. He returned to Stanford in 1992 as head of the vitreoretinal service and served as Department Chair from 1997 until 2015. He completed the Stanford Executive Program at the Graduate School of Business in 2004. He played a leading role in the planning, fundraising and construction of the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford and served as founding Director from its opening in September 2010 through June 2015.

He has served on the Editorial Boards of The American Journal of Ophthalmology, Retina, Ophthalmology, and Graefe’s Archives for Ophthalmology. He is a past President of the American University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO), and a past President of the Retina Society and the Macula Society. He was an inaugural member of the Steering Committee of the Audacious Goals Initiative of the NEI, and a Trustee and Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from 2002 until 2019 where he was the Chair of the Corporation Medical School Committee for eleven years. He is the recipient of multiple awards in the fields including the Heed Foundation Award, the Jackson Award Lecture from the AJO, the Schepens Award Lecture from the AAO, the Gass Award Lecture from the Retina Society, the William Green Award Lecture from the Macula Society, the Wacker Prize from the Club Jules Gonin, the WW Keen Award from Brown University, and the Albion Walter Hewlett Award Lecture from Stanford Medicine amongst other others.

Dr. Blumenkranz was an early innovator in vitrectomy techniques to treat complex forms of retinal detachment. He helped to usher in the modern era of intravitreal and surgical adjuvant drug therapy with laboratory and clinical studies identifying 5- fluorouracil and low molecular weight heparin as potent agents to inhibit ocular scarring. He was a member of the group that first reported the herpetic etiology and successful acyclovir treatment of acute retinal necrosis, the use of bio-erodible polymers to deliver intraocular steroids for macular edema and was an author on the first human safety studies of ranibizumab (Lucentis) and gene therapy based anti-VEGF therapy for age related macular degeneration using a modified AAV vector and the transgene for aflibercept. He has published more than one hundred and seventy five papers in peer-reviewed journals and multiple book chapters, abstracts and patents in the field.

He has a longstanding interest and expertise in university corporate technology transfer. He was a Director and principal trial designer at Oculex Pharmaceuticals who were acquired by Allergan in 2003. He served as a co-founder, Director and Chairman of the SAB of Macusight, an ophthalmic pharmaceutical company, acquired by Santen in 2010.  He was a founder and director of Peak Surgical, an innovator in pulsed plasma mediated electro-surgery that was acquired by Medtronics in 2011. In 2004 he co-founded Optimedica Corporation for which he co-wrote the foundational IP for the PASCAL and Catalys lasers, and which was acquired by AMO and subsequently J&J. In 2006 he co-founded and served as Chairman of the Board of Adverum Biotechnologies (ADVM:NASDAQ) until October 2016. He was a co-founder and director of Oculeve, a dry eye company which was acquired by Allergan in August of 2015. He was a founder and served as a Director of Verana Health (formerly Digisight Technologies) a digital medicine and health analytics company from 2009 until 2020. He served as the founding Chairman of Kedalion Therapeutics an ophthalmic drug delivery company from 2015 until 2022, and CEO from 2019 until 2022, when it was acquired by Novartis AG. He served as the founding Chairman of Combangio Inc, a topical ophthalmic biopharmaceutical company prior to its acquisition by Kala Therapeutics in 2021. He is a scientific founder of Eudora an ophthalmic gene therapy company.  He also currently serves as a director BVI Visitec, an ophthalmic surgical company, One Medical (ONEM:NASDAQ), Iveric Bio (ISEE:NASDAQ), Kala Therapeutics (KALA:NASDAQ), and the Managing Partner of Lagunita Biosciences LLC an early stage medical investment company.

He is a co-founder and the current president of the Collaborative Community on Ophthalmic Imaging Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization formed to clarify challenges, best practices, strategies and standards while advancing innovation in the ophthalmic imaging space.

Catherine Bowes Rickman, Ph.D. is a professor of ophthalmology and of cell biology in the Duke Eye Center at Duke University in Durham, NC.

Catherine leads a team of researchers focusing on developing and using mouse models to understand the pathobiology of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and on developing and testing therapeutic targets for AMD. She has a long-standing interest in the molecular and cell biology and pathology of the retina. Amongst her seminal discoveries was the identification of the gene responsible for retinal degeneration in the rd (rd1) mouse. She has applied her expertise in mouse genetics to develop multifactorial models to demonstrate AMD risk based on lipid or complement dysregulation, aging and diet. Distinctively, these models provide valuable tools for the better understanding pathology in AMD and testing of novel AMD therapeutics.

Dr. Jacque Duncan is an ophthalmologist at UCSF Medical Center who specializes in treating retina degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa, which affects one in 3,500 people worldwide; and age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in people over age 50 in the U.S. Both conditions run in families and currently have no cure.  Her expertise includes the diagnosis and treatment of retinal diseases such as Usher syndrome, cone-rod dystrophy and Stargardt disease, a form of macular degeneration that develops in childhood, and the use of experimental techniques to slow or prevent these conditions.

In her research, she is studying treatments to preserve vision and to use devices to stimulate visual perception in patients.  She has received research funding from Research to Prevent Blindness, Karl Kirchgessner Foundation, Hope for Vision, and American Geriatrics Society in addition to a Career Development Award from the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

Dr. Duncan earned a medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco, where she completed an ophthalmology residency.  She also completed a medical retina fellowship at the Scheie Eye Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, where she focused on patients with age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal degeneration.  She returned to UCSF and joined the faculty in 2000.  She is a professor of clinical ophthalmology at UCSF.  Dr. Duncan is chair of the Foundation Fighting Blindness Scientific Advisory Board.

Ms. Lisbakken is a Managing Director and the Head of Biopharma Investment Banking at Wedbush PacGrow.  She has been with the firm since 2004 and completed over 200 transactions totaling over $20 billion during her tenure.  Ms. Lisbakken has extensive experience with strategic assignments, private placements, IPOs, follow on offerings, PIPEs, reverse mergers and ATMs for biotechnology and specialty pharmaceutical companies including several eye care organizations.  Prior to Wedbush, she worked at ICOS (now part of Eli Lilly) on Cialis and the PDE4 program.  

Ms. Lisbakken holds an AB in Molecular Biology from Princeton University where she completed her thesis under the direction of Dr. Thomas Shenk, the Elkins Professor in the Life Sciences and former board member of Merck & Co

José-Alain Sahel, M.D., is distinguished professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, Eye & Ear Foundation Endowed Chair University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and adjunct professor of Robotics and Bioengineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He is an exceptional class professor of Ophthalmology at Sorbonne Université and was the founding director of The Vision Institute (Sorbonne Université, Inserm, CNRS) Paris, France (till 31 December 2020). He headed the French National Reference Center for Rare Retinal Dystrophies and the Paris Ophthalmology Clinical Investigation Center (2006-2020), overseeing more than 80 clinical trials, some of them within the most advanced areas of biomedical technologies (retinal implants, gene therapy, stem cell therapy, optogenetics).

Dr. Sahel is a clinician-scientist conducting research on vision restoration focusing on cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying retinal degeneration and development of treatments for currently untreatable retinal diseases. He co-authored over 680 peer-reviewed articles and 40 patents. He was a founder of Fovea pharmaceuticals, which became the ophthalmological division of Sanofi, and is a scientific co-founder of StreetLab (visual adaptation and rehabilitation), GenSight Biologics (gene therapy) and Pixium Vision (artificial retina), among other biotech companies. 

Dr. Sahel is recipient of numerous awards including the Foundation Fighting Blindness Llura Liggett Gund Award, Alcon Research Institute Award for Excellence in Vision Research, Grand Prix NRJ-Neurosciences-Institut de France, Foundation Fighting Blindness Llura Liggett Gund Award, Charpak-Dubousset Award, Médaille Grand Vermeil, Ville de Paris, 2021 Breakthrough in the Life Sciences - Falling Walls Foundation, Berlin, Germany. 

He was elected to the: Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis, Académie des Sciences-Institut de France, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, National Academy of Technologies of France, Association of American Physicians and American Ophthalmology Society. Dr. Sahel is Honoris Causa doctorate of University of Geneva and held the Technological Innovation Chair at the Collège de France (2015-2016). He is a member of several editorial scientific advisory boards, including Science Translational Medicine.

Dr. Jonathan Steinberg joined Summit Medical Group as the Director, SMG Arrhythmia Center and Director, Cardiac Clinical Trials and Education.

Jon specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of heart rhythm disorders, and has an international reputation for diagnosis of complex arrhythmic conditions and expertise in catheter ablation of cardiac arrhythmias.  Jon has an extensive clinical and research track record in the field, having practiced for more than 25 years.  His past accomplishments include founding the Arrhythmia Institute at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, where he also serviced as Director of the Division of Cardiology, and the Arrhythmia Institute at the Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ.  Jon is the lead editor of the electrophysiology textbook, “A Practical Guide to Catheter Ablation of AF.”  He has led or participated in hundreds of research studies in his area of expertise, and has authored more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed high-profile publications.

Jon is currently a Professor of Medicine (adj) at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry and formerly Professor of Medicine at Columbia University.  He is the recipient of numerous research grants (including prestigious funding from the NIH), serves on the editorial board of several electrophysiology journals (including Heart Rhythm, published by the Heart Rhythm Society) and is currently on the electrophysiology subcommittee of the American Board of Internal Medicine preparing board questions for his peers.  He is a fellow in several professional societies including the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Physicians, the European Society of Cardiology and the Heart Rhythm Society.  He currently serves as President of the International Society of Holter and Noninvasive Electrocardiology.

Jon has been recognized by his peers as a Top Doctor in New York Magazine for numerous years, and was the only New Jersey electrophysiologist selected in 2016.  He has been similarly recognized by New Jersey Monthly, Inside New Jersey, Super Doctors and Castle Connolly.

Jon graduated summa cum laude from Queens College and from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, both of the City University of New York.

Jon has been involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness since 2002.  He is actively involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness events in the New Jersey/New York area.  Jon’s son Josh is affected with RP. 

Warren is the former President of Gund Investment Corporation, where he led investment activities for Gordon Gund.  Typical investments included: direct private equity investments, fund investments, and public equities. 

Warren is an early investor and serves on the board of several companies including Align Technology, the maker of “Invisalign” (an alternative to traditional wire and bracket orthodontics).  Warren served on the board of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Gund Arena Company for 15 years and was the franchise’s Alternative Governor on the National Basketball Association’s Board of Governors from 2000 until 2005.  Other privately-held Gund corporations Warren has had operational and board of director’s responsibilities with include: Nationwide Advertising Services (a recruitment advertising agency), JobOptions (an internet job board) and Gus Hotel Management Corporation (an operator of Sheraton hotels in Silicon Valley).

Warren is an early investor and board member in ARdVRk Technologies, Inc.  ARdVRk Technologies focuses on developing augmented and virtual reality apps for healthcare, life sciences and medical device companies.  In addition, Warren serves on the board of One Focus Vision and Forsight Vision 6, and serves as a trustee of The Baldwin School, a K-12 private girls school in the Philadelphia area.

Prior to joining Gordon Gund in 1990, Warren worked in the Corporate Finance Department of Drexel Burnham Lambert. 

Warren has been involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness since 1998.  Neither he nor anyone in his family is affected by a retinal disease.  Warren is actively involved with Foundation Fighting Blindness events in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Orange County and Boston. 

Warren is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, Princeton University and Groton School. 

Rusty Kelley is the managing director of the Retinal Degeneration Fund (RD Fund), the venture arm of the Foundation. Kelley brings over 25 years of experience in identifying, funding and developing biotechnologies to his leadership role. Kelley helped launch the RD Fund in 2018, serving the Foundation’s mission to develop therapeutics for inherited retinal dystrophies and age-related macular degenerations.

Prior to his current role, Kelley previously served on the bench as a scientist, then as a director and head of preclinical at Tengion, a tissue engineering spin-out of Boston Children’s Hospital and Wake Forest University. Kelley then directed the translational and interdisciplinary science funding portfolios at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Earlier in his career, Kelley served on the bench in analytical chemistry and pharmaceutics in the divisions of wet chemistry and formulations at AAIPharma, and then in clinical development at PPD, Inc. where he helped develop and managed clinical trials in the divisions of Medicine, NIH trials and Infectious Disease.

Kelley received a BA in Chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill, and then after six years in industry earned a PhD in Pharmacology at LSU’s Health Sciences Center. Kelley was awarded an American Heart fellowship during his postdoc at the School of Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill and earned an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Kelley is currently a Board director of SparingVision and Nacuity and a Board observer for Atsena Therapeutics, Perceive Bio, Amber Bio, and Perceive Pharma. Kelley was also a founding Board director of Opus Genetics, and a Board observer for Stargazer Pharmaceuticals and Vedere Bio II.

Grace Warner is a dynamic financial strategist located in Las Vegas, Nevada who is most passionate about directing investment capital towards impactful missions. Ms. Warner holds a Master’s degree in Finance focused on Venture Capital and Private Equity from the International University of Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. She most recently held the position of Venture Officer at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority where she supported the investment activities of their $300M Evergreen Fund. In her early career, she contributed to a number of high-growth technology startups and non-profits across the US and EU in both product innovation and business development roles.

Jason Menzo is the chief executive officer at the Foundation Fighting Blindness, the world’s largest private funder of research for finding treatments and cures of a variety of blinding retinal degenerative diseases. The Foundation has raised over $891 million since its inception, and is currently funding 81 research projects, and more than 35 clinical trials globally.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Jason was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and subsequently the Business Unit Head for Sun Ophthalmics. He was one of four founding members of Sun Ophthalmics, and helped to build it from the ground up and into the well-known entity it is today.

He was also a founding member of Nicox, Inc. where he led the commercial launches of three ophthalmic brands. He has previously held positions of increasing responsibility with Bausch + Lomb and Inspire Pharmaceuticals.

Peter Ginsberg is chief operating officer for Foundation Fighting Blindness. In that role, Mr. Ginsberg oversees the development of financial plans and processes while providing leadership on business transactions, strategic planning, and new activities aimed at creating novel revenue streams across the Foundation Fighting Blindness and RD Fund. He led record-setting transactions during his tenure with large and small biopharmaceutical companies and has worked extensively within ophthalmology, inspired by his long-time mentor who has retinitis pigmentosa.

Most recently, Mr. Ginsberg served as vice president of business development at Savara Pharmaceuticals (SVRA), an orphan lung disease company. Previously, he headed business development for BioDelivery Sciences (BDSI), United Therapeutics (UTHR) and SurModics (SRDX). Ginsberg also served as VP of business & technology development for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, where his group financed and advised emerging life science companies. He further spent 15 years in the healthcare investment industry, during which time he was named a Wall Street Journal All-Star as Piper Jaffray’s lead biotechnology analyst.

Ginsberg serves as a board member for First Flight Venture Center and is a Chartered Financial Analyst and member of the CFA Institute. He earned an A.B. in Economics from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Dr. Amy Laster is the chief scientific officer at the Foundation Fighting Blindness, the driving force in the global development of treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases. With over $954 million raised to date, the Foundation supports more than 100 research projects worldwide under Dr. Laster’s leadership.

A neuroscientist by training, Dr. Laster directs the Foundation’s scientific strategy, collaborating with the Scientific Advisory Board, Board of Directors, academic institutions, biotech and pharmaceutical companies, venture funding entities, government agencies, and key research donors. She is responsible for the overarching scientific strategy for the Foundation, including the preclinical and early translational research programs, ensuring the Foundation remains at the forefront of innovation.

Dr. Laster has conducted significant research on neuroregeneration following acute injury and the causes of neurological monogenic diseases. She serves on the executive committee of the Health Research Alliance Board of Directors and the ClinGen Retina Ocular Clinical Domain Working Group. Her dedication to advancing science reflects the Foundation’s commitment to finding cures for blinding retinal diseases.