Two graduate students in the University of Delaware’s Department of Biological Sciences have been awarded Fight for Sight summer student fellowships to support their research into eye disorders.

Soma Dash received the Earl and Shirley Herbst Eye Research Award, and Ramachandran Balasubramanian was awarded the Basil Worgul Summer Student Fellowship, both from the Fight for Sight Foundation.

The organization was formed in 1946 to support eye research, and since 1955 it has awarded summer student fellowships, postdoctoral fellowships and grants-in-aid to encourage young ophthalmic researchers. The summer fellowships support a student’s work for two to three months and are considered highly competitive, with applicants from across the United States.

Dash, who works in the lab of Salil Lachke, assistant professor of biological sciences, is studying the function of a protein that binds to RNA and is essential for early eye development in mice.

By researching the molecular mechanism involved, she hopes that the protein could potentially provide a way to genetically screen humans for disorders such as anophthalmia (an absence of eyes) or microphthalmia (abnormally small eyes).

Balasubramanian works in the lab of Melinda Duncan, professor of biological sciences, conducting research on cataracts. A leading cause of blindness worldwide, cataracts occur when the lens of the eye becomes clouded.

Environmental factors play a role in cataract formation, Balasubramanian said, but genetics also has an effect, especially in younger patients. He is investigating a particular protein to determine the mechanism by which it regulates the transparency of a lens. The protein, he said, could have potential for preventing or treating age-related cataracts in humans.

Two other UD graduate students received previous Fight for Sight student fellowships, Archana Siddam in 2014 and Yichen Wang in 2015.