The Kresge Eye Institute will present the Vision Research Workshop, featuring the Robert N. Frank Clinical Translational Lectureship, on Oct. 18.

Scheduled to run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a reception to follow, the event will take place in the Jampel Auditorium in the Kresge Eye Institute.

The Vision Research Workshop is a trainee-run symposium of posters and papers from throughout the Wayne State University School of Medicine, Henry Ford Hospital and Oakland University. It highlights the research accomplishments of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research assistants/associates, residents, clinical fellows and medical students.

Keynote speaker Rachel Caspi, Ph.D., head of the Immunoregulation Section and chief of the Laboratory of Immunology for the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health, will present "Commensal Microbiota and the Eye."

Dr. Caspi is a tenured senior investigator who also holds an adjunct professorship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Her research centers on responses to immunologically-privileged retinal antigens in animal models of autoimmune uveitis, a potentially blinding human disease. Her recent work emphasizes the role of the gut microbiome in this process. Dr. Caspi's work studies have elucidated many basic mechanisms and helped devise clinically-relevant immunotherapeutic approaches. She is the recipient of the 2010 Friedenwald Award and the 2012 Alcon Research Institute Award, and has written and co-written more than 240 publications.

Register for the event here.