!!Botond Roska and José-Alain Sahel receive the 2026 António Champalimaud Vision Award
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__[Botond Roska|Member/Roska_Botond] MAE, Director of Science at the [Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel|https://iob.ch] (IOB), and [José-Alain Sahel|Member/Sahel_José-Alain] MAE, [University of Pittsburgh|https://www.pitt.edu], have been awarded the 2026 António Champalimaud Vision Award. Worth EUR 1 million, this is the largest award worldwide in the field of vision and ophthalmology. It marks a major international recognition of the research and long-standing collaboration led by Roska and Sahel.__
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__The award recognizes more than two decades of fundamental, translational and clinical research by Roska and Sahel. Their work has helped establish new approaches to restoring visual function, particularly through optogenetic therapies, which aim to make surviving retinal cells responsive to light when the eye’s natural photoreceptors have been lost through disease.__
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[{Image src='Roska_Botond.jpg' caption='Professor Botond Roska' height='300' alt='Botond Roska'}]
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[{Image src='SAHEL_JOSE-ALAIN.jpg' caption='Professor José-Alain Sahel' height='300' alt='José-Alain Sahel'}]
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!About Botond Roska

Prof. Roska MAE is a neuroscientist whose research has deepened our understanding of retinal function and opened new avenues for cell-specific therapies for retinal diseases. To find ways to repair visual dysfunction, Botond Roska and his co-workers investigate the retina, thalamus and cortex at the level of cell types and circuits. The knowledge they are acquiring has already improved our understanding of disease mechanisms and opened up paths to treatments. Botond Roska’s work illustrates how insights into the organization of the cell types and circuits of the nervous system, when combined with cellular engineering, could be used to design new therapies to fight blindness.
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Botond Roska was born in 1969 in Hungary. He obtained his M.D. at the Semmelweis Medical School, a Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of California, Berkeley and studied genetics and virology as a Harvard Society Fellow at Harvard University and the Harvard Medical School. He established a research group at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel in 2005. In 2010 he became Professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel, in 2018 he became a founding director of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) and from 2019 he is Professor at the Science Faculty of the University of Basel. Prof. Roska was elected as a member of the [Physiology and Neuroscience|Acad_Main/Sections/Physiology_and_neuroscience] section of Academia Europaea in 2020.
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!About José-Alain Sahel

José-Alain Sahel is an ophthalmologist and clinician-scientist. He has pioneered therapeutic approaches spanning gene therapy, neuroprotection and vision restoration. Their long-standing collaboration has helped translate fundamental discoveries about retinal circuits into new therapeutic strategies and clinical research.
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Prof. Sahel trained at Paris University Medical School, Louis Pasteur University, Strasbourg, and Harvard University. He is the Endowed Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine/UPMC. He founded in 2008 the Vision Institute (Sorbonne Université-Inserm-CNRS) in Paris, France, and the Vision Institute at UPMC, which opened in May 2023, two large interdisciplinary research centers. Prof. Sahel was elected as a member of the [Basic and Clinical Translational Sciences|Acad_Main/Sections/Basic_and_Clinical_Translational_Sciences] section of Academia Europaea in 2025.
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José-Alain Sahel's work has contributed to the understanding and preventing vision loss from photoreceptor cell degeneration. He conducted dozens of clinical trials on retinal conditions, including first in human trials of artificial retina, gene therapy, optogenetics. He co-authored over 750 peer-reviewed articles and 90 patents. He has co-founded companies developing innovative therapies for vision restoration.
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!About the António Champalimaud Vision Award

[The António Champalimaud Vision Award|https://www.fchampalimaud.org/vision-award#block-welcome] was launched during the ‘Vision 2020 - The Right to Sight’ global initiative for blindness prevention, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).
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The Award is presented once a year by the [Champalimaud Foundation|https://www.fchampalimaud.org/champalimaud-foundation], alternating between major advances in research related to vision and/or the restoration of sight (in even years) and contributions to the fight against blindness and visual impairment, primarily in developing regions (in odd years). Productive organisations, including collaborative efforts involving groups from more than one institution or domain, can be nominated or apply for the Award.
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The Award recognises groups that contributed to the fight against blindness and visual impairment, primarily in developing regions and/or have developed innovations or new technologies that impact on the quality of life of the blind and visually impaired.
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!!Academia Europaea congratulates Prof. Roska and Prof. Sahel to this outstanding distinction!
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[{Image src='champalimaud_foundation.png' caption='' height='130' alt='' link='https://www.fchampalimaud.org/champalimaud-foundation'}]
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Posted  16%%sup th/% September 2026 by Academia Europaea.\\
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