9/3/2026 Ben Libman
Bioengineering Ph.D. student Elizabeth Daniels, working in the lab of professor Susan Leggett, has received a research grant from the ISPB. She is the first student from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to do so. “Receiving this grant is an exciting milestone in my development as an independent researcher,” said Daniels. “It gives me the opportunity to take greater ownership of a research question I’m passionate about and continue building expertise in bioengineering and vision research.” Daniels’ work focuses on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a major cause of vision loss among the elderly.
Written by Ben Libman
The Illinois Society for the Prevention of Blindness (ISPB) is dedicated to reducing preventable causes of blindness through education and research. To support this mission, ISPB awards grants in eye and vision health and prioritizes research projects with direct clinical relevance being conducted by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and medical residents at Illinois-accredited institutions.
Bioengineering Ph.D. student Elizabeth Daniels, working in the lab of professor Susan Leggett, has received a research grant from the ISPB. She is the first student from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to do so. “Receiving this grant is an exciting milestone in my development as an independent researcher,” said Daniels. “It gives me the opportunity to take greater ownership of a research question I’m passionate about and continue building expertise in bioengineering and vision research.”
Daniels’ work focuses on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a major cause of vision loss among the elderly. Though common, the causes of AMD are still not widely understood. Daniels noticed this important gap in the research and began focusing on how physical changes in the aging eye contribute to disease progression. “I saw an opportunity to apply engineering approaches to an important problem in vision research and potentially provide a new perspective on how AMD develops,” said Daniels. The award that Daniels received, the Helen & Wesley E. Bass Jr. Award, is highly selective. It specifically supports projects on AMD and provides a higher level of research funding than the standard ISPB award. “Elizabeth’s receipt of the Helen & Wesley E. Bass Jr. Award is particularly impressive as she is the first person in my laboratory to conduct vision research, and she received the award after only initiating the project this past year,” Leggett said.
Daniels’ research focuses on the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), which is a layer of cells located at the back of the eye. Daniels thinks that the way RPE tissue mechanics change as we age may contribute to AMD. She is developing an experimental model that can recreate those changes to help scientists better understand and treat this condition.
The RPE tissue microphysiological system Daniels has created more closely resembles the environment of a real eye, including its curvature, which is a major step forward from traditional flat cell culture models. The ISPB grant will allow Daniels to improve and further validate this dynamic model that could eventually lead to new diagnostic tools and therapies for AMD.
Daniels doesn’t want to make these strides alone. Rather, she is focused on creating technology that is accessible, so it may be adopted as widely as possible. “Accessibility is very important to me,” affirmed Daniels. “A research technique has greater impact when other scientists can reproduce, adapt, and build upon it.” Leggett concurred, adding, “Her focus is not only on developing a more physiologically relevant platform, but also on doing so in a way that creates a seamless approach that can be adopted by laboratories with fewer resources. This work has the potential to create tools that are useful beyond her own project and beyond our laboratory.”
This work has already made an international impact. Daniels explains: “Susan and I were selected to give an oral presentation and present a poster at the XXVII Biennial Meeting of the International Society for Eye Research (ISER) in Valencia, Spain. We were able to share this research with an international audience and meet some amazing eye researchers.”
In addition to her vision research, Daniels is simultaneously advancing a second research project focused on developing a novel treatment strategy to target aggressive breast cancer cells that survive standard therapy. Leggett emphasized that Daniels’ ability to lead distinct projects across multiple areas of biomedical research reflects both her scientific versatility and her potential to become a future leader in developing new approaches to improve human health.
Daniels thanked professor Leggett and the Department of Bioengineering, saying, “This work is only made possible by the mentorship and support I receive in the Leggett Lab and from the broader research community at Illinois.”