As a child, Michaela Minichello travelled from one optometrist to the next.

She decided when she grew up, she would improve people's quality of life by researching human eye development, and that is just what the senior biology major is working to do.

This past summer, Minichello was awarded a Fight for Sight's Summer Student Fellowship Grant of $2,100 for her ongoing eye research project on the study of aniridia, a birth defect of the eye. She will continue her research throughout this semester.

Fight for Sight is a non-profit organization that provides funding to aspiring scientists for their eye and vision research. Summer Student Fellowship awards are given for two to three months of research. The $2,100 award will compensate Minichello for the lab work she completed at UD this summer.

Minichello herself suffers from a birth defect in her left eye, and after spending a portion of her childhood visiting optometric and ophthalmic offices, developed an interest in optometry-related research in pursuit of advancing people's quality of life.

In the Fight for Sight's 64th annual selection of grantees, Minichello was one of the 23 recipients of the student fellowship grant, which is awarded to undergraduate, graduate and medical students.

The senior represented UD among other students from Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and several Ivy League schools, according to her advisor, Dr. Amit Singh.

Minichello's research focuses on the absence of the iris, which is caused by a gene mutation that causes the eye to stop developing too early. By studying birth defects in the human eye using a fruit fly model, she aims to better understand the role of the defective proventriculus (dve) gene in human eye development.

The student spent one year writing her honors thesis with advisor Singh, and devoted her summer to researching the project. Minichello also works with two graduate students who help teach her techniques in the lab and implement experiments.

"Michaela is a highly industrious and diligent student with a strong aptitude toward research," Dr. Singh said. "She has generated interesting data in a short period of time. She has proved to be a great colleague to other members in my laboratory."

Minichello will complete her honors thesis in April 2011, and the work that won her the grant will contribute to other research to form a complete story of the dve gene in eye development. She plans on pursuing optometry school after graduation.

In addition to carrying out research, Minichello also is the president of Beta Beta Beta, the biological honors society, and has been awarded an honor's thesis grant. She is a recipient of the Learn, Lead and Serve grant program which enables students to pursue special projects through an anonymous donor, as well as various other awards. She also was interviewed by "Eye on Vision" radio and has been featured along with Singh in a Dayton Daily News article.

"My personal experiences have given me direction toward a career and a passion to find answers and solutions about birth defects of the eye," Minichello said. "There is so much potential to improve the quality of life for many people within the field of optical and vision-related research."