In July 1986, Dr. Ed Stone and his wife Mary, a dermatologist, moved to Iowa City. Dr. Stone was starting his ophthalmology residency, and Mary was beginning her first faculty job. Dr. Stone chose Iowa for several reasons, including the encouragement he received from doctors Stan Thompson and Jim Corbett, who told him, "you should come here!" during his resident applicant tour. Iowa's renowned faculty also played a significant role in his decision. At that time, the faculty included Fred Blodi, Bob Watzke, Sohan Hayreh, Bill Scott, Joerg Kolder, Tom Weingeist, Jim Folk, Rick Anderson, David Tse, Frank Judisch, Jay Krachmer, Chuck Phelps, and Karl Ossoinig. 

The residency selection committee, which included Dr. Tom Weingeist, was particularly interested in Dr. Stone's desire to use his molecular biology training to study inherited eye diseases. Dr. Weingeist encouraged Dr. Stone to set up a molecular biology lab shortly after his arrival. In early 1987, Dr. Weingeist decommissioned an old electron microscope he had used for his PhD work and gave Dr. Stone access to that space in Med Labs room 361. Dr. Stone proudly placed a sign outside that room, marking the first use of the term "Molecular Ophthalmology."

Outreach has always been a fundamental cultural feature of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. For example, Dr. Alson Braley, a former chairman of the ophthalmology department, ran an amateur-radio-based network in the 1960s to identify human tissue for corneal transplantation. Shortly after arriving in Iowa, Dr. Stone was driving to work and talking with an older gentleman using his portable ham radio. 

The man asked what brought Dr. Stone to Iowa, and Dr. Stone proudly told him that he was an ophthalmology resident. After a startled pause, the man said, "You know that conference room you're about to go into for rounds? It's named after me." Dr. Stone eventually had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Al Braley in person, and they discovered they were the only Iowa ophthalmology faculty members with active amateur radio licenses.

In the late 1980s, scientists were mapping the human genome at low resolution by identifying "linkages" between known and unknown genetic markers. This method could also be used to locate disease-causing genes if enough affected family members participated. While taking a history and examining a child scheduled for surgery for an unrelated condition, Dr. Stone discovered that the child's mother had a macular dystrophy and many additional affected relatives. 

This led to the first of many Molecular Ophthalmology Laboratory "road trips," where Dr. Stone examined dozens of family members in a Des Moines restaurant owned by the family. The informed consent document was less than one page long, and the "clinical equipment" consisted of an eye chart, indirect ophthalmoscope, dilating drops, and phlebotomy supplies—all transported in paper grocery sacks. The samples gathered that night led to the lab's first major discovery: the chromosomal location of the gene causing Best disease.

In 1987, Dr. Stone received his first grant of $19,600 from the Knights Templar Eye Foundation, which supported the lab for its first year. The lab's team, including volunteers from various backgrounds, examined families and identified genes causing several eye diseases. The volunteers included Iowa ophthalmology residents Kristin Wells, Tim Johnson, Mark McCarthy, and Steve Bennett; junior faculty member Alan Kimura; ophthalmic photographers Ed Heffron and Bill Ward; medical students Mike Raphtis, Chuck Barnes, Jill Brody, Jeff Coppinger, and Brian Weismann; and undergraduate students Natalie Neill, Laura Vockrodt, Reid Longmuir, and Aaron Weingeist. 

They transported their equipment in vans borrowed from the university motor pool, which were usually used to transport small athletic teams to regional games. In 1987 alone, this volunteer team examined families that eventually led to the chromosomal location and/or identification of the first human glaucoma gene (MYOC) as well as the genes causing Best disease (BEST1), pattern dystrophy (RDS), Stargardt-like Dominant Macular Dystrophy (ELOVL4), Autosomal Dominant Neovascular Vitreoretinopathy (CAPN5), Lattice, Granular, and Avellino Corneal Dystrophies (TGFB1), Posterior Polymorphous Macular Dystrophy (OVOL2), and Wagner Disease (VCAN1).

Dr. Stone completed his three and a half years of residency in December 1989 and joined the faculty as an assistant professor the following month. During his first two and a half years on the faculty, he split his time between directing the fledgling Molecular Ophthalmology Laboratory (MOL) and completing his fellowship in vitreoretinal diseases and surgery. 

In 1990, Dr. Val Sheffield joined the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Iowa and brought with him the means for unlocking the power of the blood samples that Dr. Stone had collected and catalogued during his residency. During his fellowship in San Francisco, Dr. Sheffield had perfected a method for polymerase-chain-reaction-based mutation detection of disease-causing mutations in human blood samples. Drs. Stone and Sheffield first met when Dr. Sheffield was interviewing for his faculty job, and within days of Dr. Sheffield's arrival, he dropped into the MOL to tell Dr. Stone that he had decided to take the job and was opening his lab in the adjacent building (EMRB). During that meeting, Dr. Sheffield told Dr. Stone that he had a powerful new method for detecting mutations, and Dr. Stone responded that he had a freezer full of DNA samples from patients with inherited retinal diseases to test the method with. Dr. Stone handed Dr. Sheffield a box of samples, and less than 24 hours later, they had their first mutual discovery: an Arg58Thr rhodopsin mutation in a family with autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. The paper reporting this discovery was the first of more than 160 (and counting) research papers that Dr. Stone and Dr. Sheffield have published together.

The year 1990 was also notable for the addition of Luan Streb as the MOL's first full-time employee. Luan was a research assistant in the photograph reading center of the department when Dr. Stone asked her if she would be willing to learn some molecular biology. Luan proved to have an extraordinary talent for managing complex tasks of all sorts and, in the early years, did everything from preparing reagents and running gels to purchasing supplies, managing the lab workforce, and typing grants and papers. In 1992, she helped Dr. Stone draft a written "expectations of MOL employees" document that set a standard of performance that, as much as any other single management concept, helped the lab and later the center and institute to be successful. A mother of four and now a grandmother, Luan is still pursuing cures for blindness as the chief operating officer of the Institute for Vision Research.

...to be continued...

*Adapted from the IVR chapter, written by Dr. Stone, in Stan Thompson and John Lee's book.