Inspired by a $50 million gift made in 2018 by philanthropist Andrew J. Viterbi, PhD, the future 5-story, 100,000-square-foot facility will house wet and dry laboratories for vision research and clinical trials for precision ophthalmology, as well as administrative and educational spaces. The state-of-the-art facility currently is due to be completed by June 2025.

The new facility will also be home to the newly established Hanna and Mark Gleiberman Center for Glaucoma Research, which was funded by a $20 million gift in 2022 from the Gleiberman’s. Research on inherited macular degenerations, a retinal condition that can result in vision loss and for which there currently is no cure, will take place in the center as well, thanks to the support from the Nixon Visions Foundation, led by UC San Diego alumnus Brandon Nixon ’85, and his wife, Janine.

Robert N. Weinreb, MD, Chair and Distinguished Professor of the Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology, Director of the Shiley Eye Institute and holder of the Morris Gleich, MD, Chair in Glaucoma stated, “In this new building, there will be clinical trials for precision ophthalmology, gene therapy trials, stem cell therapy trials and more. We are building bridges with other departments across the university, including data science, cell and molecular medicine, pharmacology, bioinformatics, bioengineering, stem cell biology and gene therapy. Our dream is to realize the impossible by curing blinding eye diseases.”

For more information about faculty recruitment of scientists and clinician-scientists, please contact Alex Huang, MD, PhD at aahuang@health.ucsd.edu.