Tonia Rex, Ph.D.
Dr. Tonia Rex earned a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Oakland University.
While there she studied retinal energy metabolism and oxidative stress resulting
in the 31st most cited article in Free Radical Biology & Medicine from 1985-2005.
She earned her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University
of California, Santa Barbara studying the molecular and cellular effects of retinal
detachment on the photoreceptors. Finally, she was post-doctoral fellow at the University
of Pennsylvania where she studied retinal gene therapy. She is currently an assistant
professor in the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Science at Vanderbilt University
Medical Center. Dr. Rex was awarded the Hope for Vision Young Investigator Award,
the Shaffer Prize for Innovative Glaucoma Research from the Glaucoma Research Foundation,
and the Research to Prevent Blindness Career Development Award. Dr. Rex was also
a winner of the National Eye Institute Audacious Goals Challenge for her goal of
“functional and structural neuroregeneration”. She is currently funded by the National
Eye Institute to investigate mechanisms and therapy in glaucoma, and the Department
of Defense to identify therapies for eye trauma. Dr. Rex is also the Vanderbilt Eye
Institute Director of Resident Research and is the co-Director of the Gene and Protein
Analysis Module in the Vanderbilt Vision Research Center.
