A respected expert on vision and eye research, Dr. Besharse received a BA degree at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas in 1966, and MA (1969) and Ph.D. (1973) degrees at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) before doing post-doctoral work at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in Ophthalmology. In 1977 he assumed a faculty position at Emory University School of Medicine and was promoted to Professor in both Cell Biology and Ophthalmology in 1984. In 1989 he became Chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City. He is currently Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy at Medical College of Wisconsin.
Dr. Besharse's research interests are on cellular mechanisms that establish photoreceptor polarity and control photosensitive membrane turnover. His accomplishments include contributions to the mechanism of rhythmic disc shedding and disc assembly in photoreceptors, identification of cellular membrane compartments in the final steps of disc morphogenesis, the demonstration that the retina and the photoreceptors in isolation exhibit circadian clock properties, and the identification and analysis of novel photoreceptor specific genes that are transcriptionally controlled through circadian mechanisms. To support this work, Dr. Besharse has maintained continuous funding through individual National Institutes of Health Research grants over the past 25 years.
Dr. Besharse's awards include the Richard R. Kudo Award for outstanding Ph.D. dissertation at SIUC, an NIH National Research Service Award as a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University, an NIH Research Career Development Award as a faculty member at Emory University (1979-84), an Alcon Research Institute Award in for outstanding research in Vision Science (1993), and the Alumni Achievement Award from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (1998).
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Last updated: 01-May-00 / lsm