Bikash Pattnaik, PhD, assistant professor, Neonatology and Newborn Nursery, received a $106,823 award from Hubble Therapeutics for his project, “Assessment of ocular function in KCNJ13 conditional knockout mice administered subretinal HUB-101 and assessment of expression of HUB-101 in hfRPE cells in monolayer culture.” The project will test HUB-101 expression in cultured human fetal retinal pigment epithelium (hfRPE) cells in vitro. It will also measure the functional recovery of electroretinography (ERG) c-wave, retina structure, and expression of immune markers after subretinal delivery at specified time points in vivo. The goal of HUB-101, a new gene therapy, is to treat the inherited retinal disorder Leber congenital amaurosis, which is caused by mutations in the KCNJ13 gene. Hubble Therapeutics is a biotechnology company which aims to develop a platform of ion channel-targeted therapeutics targeting rare diseases. The data generated from this study will be used to support a clinical trial to evaluate HUB-101 gene therapy.