Eye health is topic of Saxon Graham Lecture

A world-renowned leader in research on the role of diet and nutrition in the onset and progression of common age-related eye diseases will present the annual Saxon Graham Lecture this Friday in 144 Farber Hall, South Campus.

Julie Mares, PhD, MSPH, professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will present a lecture titled “What Might Simple Measures of Eye Carotenoids Tell Us About the Health of Our Eyes and Bodies?”

The annual lecture is sponsored by the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions’ Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health. The talk is scheduled to start promptly at noon and is free and open to the public.

Mares will discuss her research and the potential utility of integrated risk markers in screening for health risk to identify people who might benefit most from prevention strategies in early adulthood.

“We are very excited to have a scientist of the caliber of Dr. Mares join us to share some of her recent research,” said Jo Freudenheim, chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health. “Her research brings an interdisciplinary perspective to an important health problem, particularly significant as the size of the population of older people increases.”

Mares’ work in the nutritional epidemiology of eye disease has included the study of carotenoids, selectively concentrated in the eye, which are potentially a modifiable integrated risk marker for age-related eye disease, as well as for general health. In addition to a PhD in nutritional sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mares is trained as a dietitian.

The event is part of the Saxon Graham Lectureship series. Graham, an accomplished epidemiologist, chaired the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health (formerly known as the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine) from 1981 to 1991. He is known for his important contributions to the understanding of the impact of diet on cancer, many of which were based on studying dietary habits of Western New Yorkers.

The department continues Graham’s legacy of using epidemiologic tools to investigate the causes and prevention of diseases in human populations in Western New York and elsewhere.