$1 Million in State Funding Concludes Successful UB Campaign

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A $1 million major legislative initiative from New York State Senator Dale M. Volker (R-I-C, Depew) has allowed the University at Buffalo's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to successfully complete its $9 million campaign for the Ira G. Ross Eye Institute.

Volker announced the funding today at the Lion's Club District 20-N cabinet meeting held in the Elizabeth Pierce Olmsted, M.D., Center for the Visually Impaired at 1176 Main St. Among those at the event was UB President John B. Simpson.

"The Ross Eye Institute will be one of the finest ophthalmology research and teaching facilities in the entire nation," said Volker.

"With this infusion of state resources, the Ira G. Ross Eye Institute can build upon its success and international prominence, which will directly translate into better procedures and protocols for faculty, students, researchers, and most importantly, the patients who come here from around the globe seeking medical care.

"Our vision is one of our most precious gifts," Volker added, "and the Ross Eye Institute's mission is to address, prevent and mitigate the myriad of diseases that can take away our eyesight. It is such an important mission, one which we all should join together in tackling."

In 2003, noted ophthalmologist Elizabeth Pierce Olmsted Ross, M.D., a 1939 alumna of the UB medical school, extended a challenge grant of $3 million to establish a center of excellence devoted to vision research, education and clinical care and named in honor of her late husband. The medical school met the challenge with gifts from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Then Olmsted issued another $1 million challenge grant, which the school matched through additional fundraising efforts. Volker's initiative brings the campaign to a successful conclusion of $9 million.

The campaign has attracted several major donations, in addition to Volker's $1 million legislative initiative. Significant donors have included the John R. Oishei Foundation ($1.2 million), the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation ($225,000), Research to Prevent Blindness ($220,000) and, most recently, the James H. Cummings Foundation ($150,000).

Olmsted, who attended the luncheon, said she is "delighted that the campaign has reached a successful conclusion. My thanks go to the corporations and foundations that joined me in supporting vision research and clinical care in the Western New York community."

UB President John B. Simpson praised Olmsted and the other donors to the campaign.

"When you take a moment to consider the path that has brought the Ross Eye Institute campaign to its successful conclusion," he said, "it is truly a vivid illustration of the university-community partnerships that our region's future depends upon."

He continued, "The university and our medical school have relied on many partners in the community to help us realize this vision -- from our distinguished and dedicated alumna, Dr. Olmsted, who spearheaded the campaign, to the individuals and groups who rose to meet her challenge, to the legislative leadership represented by Senator Volker's announcement today.  The Ira G. Ross Eye Institute will be a shining example of what we can achieve when we work together to build a bright future for Western New York."

The center will diagnose and treat eye diseases, as well as provide prevention and rehabilitation services. It will run education programs for physicians and members of the Western New York community.

UB's Department of Ophthalmology has designed the institute as a collaborative enterprise with the Olmsted Center. It will consist of a free-standing clinical care complex at 1176 Main Street -- within the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus – and next to the Olmsted Center, and research facilities on UB's South (Main Street) Campus.

The institute's Main Street site will be the primary teaching facility for the UB Ophthalmology Department's residency program, bringing senior medical students, post-doctoral researchers and physicians onto the medical campus.

Groundbreaking for the Main Street site was held last fall. The Ross Eye Institute is slated to open in 2007.

Michael E. Cain, dean of the UB medical school, noted that the institute "will serve an ethnically and economically diverse population, both as employer and health-care provider. Its highly accessible location on Main Street is ideally located to provide care for Buffalo's underserved population."

James D. Reynolds, M.D., professor and chair of the UB Department of Ophthalmology, will head the institute. "We plan to fulfill the classic mission of a medical school department, which includes research, education and clinical care, in a nationally unique way," he explained. "We believe this is one of the first true collaborations between a medical school department and a social service agency."

The late Ira G. Ross was an innovative scientist and engineer responsible for establishing aerodynamic and in-flight simulation techniques that still are used in testing commercial and military aircraft. He was head of one of the nation's largest applied research organizations in Western New York, Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, which became Calspan and is now Veridian. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.