Choroideremia Research Foundation Awards Alice Y. Zhang, MD, the 6th Annual Randy Wheelock Research Award

Neal Bench, CRF President, awarding Alice Zhang, MD and colleagues the 2025 Randy Wheelock Award at UNC-Chapel Hill.

CRF honors Dr. Alice Y. Zhang with the 6th Annual Randy Wheelock Research Award for advancing patient-focused outcomes in choroideremia research.

SPRINGFIELD, MA, UNITED STATES, October 21, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Choroideremia Research Foundation (CRF) is proud to announce that Alice Y. Zhang, MD, Associate Professor and Residency Program Director in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel

Hill, has been selected as the recipient of the 6th Annual Randy Wheelock Research Award. This prestigious award recognizes emerging leaders in ophthalmic research who are making significant contributions to the understanding and treatment of choroideremia (CHM) and related vision loss conditions.

Introduced in 2020, the Randy Wheelock Award celebrates the decades-long advocacy of its namesake to find treatment or a cure for CHM. As CRF’s Chief Advisor for Research and Therapy Development, Randy Wheelock was an integral part of the organization’s achievements over the years. He collaborated with researchers and other rare disease groups to leverage assets and scientific knowledge in search of treatment options and a cure for CHM.

Zhang’s research focuses on the development and validation of patient-reported outcome measures that more accurately capture meaningful changes in visual function for individuals with CHM. With the support of the $50,000 award, Zhang aims to advance the field by establishing more sensitive and meaningful measures of success in future therapeutic trials.

In a statement, Zhang expressed her gratitude for the award:
“Our team is very grateful to the Choroideremia Research Foundation for this grant. This award provides crucial support for advancing our understanding of how patients experience vision loss in choroideremia. By validating patient-reported outcomes, we hope to lay the groundwork for more sensitive and meaningful measures of success in future therapeutic trials.” (Source: UNC-Chapel Hill)

Past Wheelock Award Winners:
2020 Kim Edwards
2021 Cynthia Qian, MD, FRCSC, DABO
2022 Bhanu Telugu, DVM, PhD
2023 Luisa de Lemos, PhD
2024 Shalhevet Izraeli

The Choroideremia Research Foundation is committed to supporting innovative research that brings hope to individuals affected by CHM, accelerates the development of effective treatments, and works toward a cure.