Research to Prevent Blindness Award to Enable Transformational Scientific Milestone in Neuroscience and Vision Science

April 22, 2026, NEW YORK, NY—Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) is pleased to announce that a $950,000 RPB Transformational Team Science Award has been made to the Eyewire II project, a collaborative research effort to create the first fully-mapped region of the mammalian central nervous system. With key support from RPB being granted to the U.S.-based team, Eyewire II will create an open-source data resource that will be available to the entire research field, with particular relevance to work in neuroscience and vision science.

The international team of scientists leading Eyewire II are creating a map of the mouse retina at an unprecedented level of detail. They are combining two state-of-the-art techniques—functional calcium imaging and 3D electron microscopy—to create a complete wiring diagram of all the cell types in the mouse retina and all the synapses that connect them. A wiring diagram of a set of neural circuits is called a connectome. A complete connectome fundamentally alters and elevates an entire research field.

“One high-impact way to achieve our mission is to invest our philanthropic funds in a resource that will make vision research more effective and efficient regardless of what lab or university the work is being done in,” said Brian F. Hofland, PhD, President of Research to Prevent Blindness. “When we support projects like Eyewire II, we’re not only advancing the science being done within this project, but also all of the science that will come out of the products created by this project.”

This Award is supplemental to RPB’s standing grants portfolio of individual awards and unrestricted departmental grants. It is a pilot grant that will significantly advance vision science, while enabling the RPB Board of Trustees to evaluate the potential impact of adding large-scale, open-source, team science grants to RPB’s grants portfolio. As with all RPB grants, funding is awarded to a U.S. academic medical center. The potential continuation of the Transformational Team Science Award as a component of RPB’s grants portfolio will be discussed as part of RPB’s future strategic planning process. RPB’s current strategic plan is active through the end of 2027.

A Transformational Team

The RPB Transformational Team Science Award will be granted to the Department of Ophthalmology at Northwestern University, which will disperse the funds to Eyewire II research team members as needed. Eyewire II is being led by:

• Gregory Schwartz, PhD, Derrick T. Vail Associate Professor, Departments of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience at Northwestern University, who is a recipient of multiple RPB awards and a leader in retinal cell types and circuits.
• Sebastian Seung, PhD, Evnin Professor in Neuroscience, Professor of Computer Science, Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University, who is a pioneer of connectomics. His lab led the FlyWire project, which revealed the complete connectome of the fruit fly.
• Thomas Euler, PhD, Professor for Ophthalmic Research and Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Institute of Ophthalmic Research at the University of Tübingen in Germany, who has spent more than three decades at the forefront of retina research and methods development in neuroscience, including two-photon calcium imaging.
• Philipp Berens, PhD, Professor of Data Science, Director of the Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health at the University of Tübingen, Germany, who is an internationally recognized leader in data science and computational neuroscience whose software tools are used by hundreds of labs around the world.

This render shows 370 retinal cells that compute visual information, such as motion. Many of these cells send information from the back of the eye directly into the brain. These cells are part of Eyewire II, which is building the world’s largest synapse resolution retinal connectomics dataset to help decipher the cells and circuits that make vision possible.
PHOTO CREDIT: Amy Sterling, EyeWire II, Princeton University

Creating a Research “Map”

“Performing research in a field with a connectome is like navigating unfamiliar terrain with a map,” said Dr. Schwartz. Since the publication and public distribution of the fruit fly connectome in October 2024, insect neuroscience has undergone a revolution. Each research study investigating a particular set of neurons now begins by placing those neurons in context within the entire brain. All the inputs and outputs of each neuron are easily accessed with a few clicks from a public website, and that data forms the foundation for detailed hypotheses about the way each neuron functions in a set of behaviors.

Eyewire II will do the same for vision science. Anyone studying how visual information is processed in the retina will be able to build upon a shared foundation of knowledge about the more than 100 neuron types and their millions of connections that comprise retinal circuits.

Mouse models of many retinal diseases already exist, including glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and a host of genetic disorders. A major barrier in the field has been the rigor with which scientists can study dysfunction in these models. Most studies report only descriptive, large-scale effects, like changes in the thickness of retinal layers or the number of dead cells. Following the completion of Eyewire II, the next generation of these studies will instead reveal which specific cells and circuits are affected first in each disease. Since most retinal cell types show strong conservation from mice to humans, navigating disease models with the connectome map of the retina will usher in an era of precision medicine in ophthalmology.

The research, as well as the research model, stands to undergo a revolution.

“Eyewire II will enable the global retinal neuroscience community to establish itself as a model for efficient community science and open data-sharing practices. Fields like cosmology and particle physics have led the way in large, international projects. There is a growing appreciation that many of the next major steps in biology will require similar large-scale efforts,” said Dr. Schwartz. “With 25 labs around the world currently participating in the Eyewire II Consortium, we are establishing our team as a model for large-scale research projects in biology.”

The Right Funder at the Right Time

Earlier key work that contributed to Eyewire II was funded by the National Institutes of Health and other major funders, which considerably de-risks the project. After making tremendous progress with earlier funding, Eyewire II turned to RPB for funding to complete the essential final phase of this groundbreaking effort. The project is a perfect fit for RPB due to its value as a cutting-edge resource for the entire research field, which will elevate all vision science. As such, the RPB Board of Trustees has selected Eyewire II as the recipient of this pilot award that builds on RPB’s long history of field-building science, in the service of creating treatments, preventives and cures for people with sight-threatening conditions. The Board notes that RPB is uniquely positioned to invest in high-impact research now, to create the treatments of tomorrow.

About Research to Prevent Blindness

Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) and its founder, Dr. Jules Stein, were instrumental in developing the field of vision science in the 1960s. Since that time, RPB’s research funding—now at more than $435 million—has helped to propel the field of vision science to the forefront of medical science, and RPB funding has been associated with nearly every major advance in the field. RPB is the leading U.S. nonprofit that identifies and supports research to create treatments, cures and preventives for all sight-threatening diseases. It has been laser-focused on this mission for six decades and counting. As part of its purview to preserve and restore vision, RPB also supports efforts to grow and sustain a robust vision research community. Learn more at www.rpbusa.org.