Jerome R. "Jer" Kuszak, PhD
Chicago, IL

Dr. Kuszak is an ultrastructural cell biologist who trained under Dr. Harry Maisel at  Wayne State University’s College of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. After completing his postdoctoral training under Prof. James Rae, he was named Director of Electron Microscopy at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL.  Dr. Kuszak, is the recipient of numerous scientific awards including the prestigious Alcon Research Institute Award, has published over one hundred scientific manuscripts, and book chapters, and is a reviewer for many international scientific journals and granting agencies; he is also a key Scientific Advisor to vision science organizations and commercial enterprises.

Dr. Kuszak’s lens research program has been, and continues to be guided by the simple philosophy and scientific tenet that states, “form follows function and malformation leads to malfunction”. Employing numerous microscopic approaches including, light, transmission, scanning, and freeze etch electron microscopy, as well as fluorescent and slit lamp microscopy, Dr. Kuszak’s laboratory has been at the forefront in quantifiably demonstrating the differences in lens structure among vertebrates as a function of development, growth, and aging.  Then through scientific visualization, the use of computer graphics to accurately reconstruct the 3 and 4 dimensionality of lenses during the same time periods under the same states, and as a function of pathology, Dr. Kuszak is attempting to correlate all of the above meta-analytic data to reveal the underlying anatomical basis for transparency, accommodation and cataract.