Award: Florida Newsmaker of the Year for Science

2009 “Florida Newsmaker of the Year for Science, awarded by Florida Trend, to William W. Hauswirth, Ph.D., the Rybaczki-Bullard professor of ophthalmology and molecular genetics, COM. Dr. Hauswirth led a team that helped three people born with an incurable form of blindness regain some of their vision. He also showed how gene therapy could cure squirrel monkeys of color blindness — the most common genetic disorder in people. The finding — which was deemed the No. 3 scientific discovery of 2009 by Time magazine — represents a significant step toward curing human vision disorders involving cone cells, which are the most important cells for sight.