It gives me great pleasure to introduce this year's Cogan Award recipient, Jayakrishna Ambati, MD. The award and lecture are named after the extraordinary David Glendenning Cogan (1908–1993), and it is most appropriate. A prolific pathologist and ophthalmologist, Dr. Cogan possessed observational powers that led to numerous eponymous discoveries, including Cogan's sign, Cogan's syndrome, and Cogan's disease. His scientific output started early and continued at a high level well into his later years. He was widely admired for being a compassionate physician, genuinely humble in demeanor, and always gently guiding and encouraging as a teacher. Importantly, he placed a high emphasis on a robust collaboration between clinicians and research scientists.
Today, we honor a Cogan Award recipient who has maximized that collaboration, because the clinician and researcher reside in the same person. Jayakrishna Ambati is Professor and Vice Chair of the University of Kentucky Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, as well as Professor of Physiology. As the Dr. Vernon E. Smith and Eloise C. Smith Endowed Chair, Dr. Ambati has attained numerous honors. Among them are the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Award (first for an ophthalmologist) and the Burroughs Wellcome Translational Research Clinical Scientist Award.
Jay obtained his BS in Electrical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University and received his MD, magna cum laude, from the SUNY Health Science Center. His residency in ophthalmology was taken at the University of Rochester and his research fellowship at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary of the Harvard Medical School. It was there that I first met him and was immediately taken with his intelligence and ability to ask (and quickly answer!) a scientific question.
Since leaving Harvard, Jay has been prolific. He has published numerous top-tier papers addressing central questions in vision science and retinal disease—all of this before the age of 40. It is therefore wholly appropriate that he receive this high honor today, as his accomplishments to date suggest that many more insights into human disease will arise from his fertile mind.