Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative
“Diabetic Retinopathy in Youths – A Potential Unappreciated Public Health Catastrophe”
MTM Vision Co-Scientific Director Jennifer K. Sun, M.D., M.P.H., of the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and the Beetham Eye Institute at Joslin Diabetes Center, co-authored an article titled “Diabetic Retinopathy in Youths – A Potential Unappreciated Public Health Catastrophe,” recently published in JAMA Ophthalmology. Sun’s co-authors include Julie Rosenthal, M.D., M.S., from the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan, and Risa M. Wolf, M.D., from the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The article highlights the concerning rise of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in youths, a condition traditionally considered rare in this population. Recent data from the SEARCH and TODAY studies revealed alarming rates of DR among youths with diabetes, with 52% of those with type 1 diabetes and up to 55% with youth-onset type 2 diabetes showing signs of the disease after a relatively short duration of 7.5 to 12 years.
Data Harmonization, Standardization, and Collaboration for Diabetic Retinal Disease (DRD) Research: Report From the 2024 Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative Workshop on Data
The report, “Data Harmonization, Standardization, and Collaboration for Diabetic Retinal Disease (DRD) Research: Report From the 2024 Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative (MTM Vision) Workshop on Data,” was recently published by TVST, an ARVO Journal. The “Workshop on Data” discussed best practices and specific considerations for building a comprehensive, shareable MTM Vision data lake by standardizing and harmonizing clinical data and ocular omics analyses. Standardization of data collection, common data elements, and data interoperability were emphasized alongside federated learning approaches to promote data sharing and collaboration while maintaining data privacy and security. Integrating molecular data with other multimodal data types was recognized as a promising strategy for leveraging machine learning, and AI approaches to advance therapeutics development and improve treatment outcomes for DRD patients. Partnerships with the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, foundations, and industry were deemed vital for successfully implementing these initiatives. The report was led by Amitha Domalpally, MD, PhD, with contributors including Ward Fickweiler, MD; S. Robert Levine, MD; Kerry E. Goetz; PhDc; Brian L. VanderBeek; MD, MPH, MSCE; Aaron Lee, MD; Jeffrey M. Sundstrom, MD, PhD; Dorene Markel, MS, MHSA; Jennifer K. Sun, MD, MPH.
Nina
Nina has battled diabetes for over 33 years, and in 2023 she received an unexpected diagnosis of diabetic retinal disease (DRD). Determined to face this challenge head-on, she moved closer to family to build a strong support network for managing appointments, laser treatments, surgeries, and more. Although she knew DRD was a potential complication, she never imagined it would affect her personally. Now, Nina is stepping into advocacy—having even spoken with a member of Congress about boosting diabetes research funding—and is ready to share her powerful story.
Liz Walsh
Meet Liz Walsh, a dedicated team member of our partner BreakthroughT1D (formerly JDRF). Liz’s journey with her eye health started six years ago when she noticed dark spots in her vision. A subsequent exam revealed severe damage, and since 2018, she’s courageously undergone five surgeries to repair a recurring detached retina in her left eye. While there are no guarantees for the future, Liz’s story is one of strength, resilience, and hope.
Through it all, Liz found moments of reflection, thinking about the things she loves—baking, photography, sports, taking her dog to the park, and memorizing the faces of her loved ones, all while embracing the uncertainty ahead. But despite the fear, Liz remains hopeful, fully supporting research efforts to preserve and restore vision loss from diabetes.
Her story is a reminder of how crucial it is to continue supporting research for diabetic retinal disease so that one day, people like Liz won’t have to worry about losing their vision from diabetes. Together, we can find a cure for DRD.
Grace Bennett
Grace Bennett, an employee at BreakThroughT1D (formerly JDRF), had always been fiercely independent, navigating the ups and downs of life with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) that ultimately caused her to have Diabetic Retinal Disease (DRD). When she began experiencing complications with her vision as a result of DRD, everything changed. The fear was overwhelming—what would happen if she lost something as crucial as her eyesight? On top of the fear, there was the crushing weight of shame and isolation. Grace couldn’t shake the feeling that it was her fault, that maybe she’d done something wrong in managing her diabetes.
Her retinal specialist assured her it was not her fault, telling her that living with T1D for over 20 years—like in her case—very often leads to serious complications like kidney and heart disease as well as vision loss from DRD, even when you do all you can to manage blood sugars. At that moment, Grace felt a wave of relief. This understanding gave her the strength to focus on addressing the complication and moving forward. There’s still so much more work to be done. We must continue to support innovative research and develop new therapies to address the early stages of DRD and restore vision in people who have lost it due to diabetes. Together, we can find new ways to prevent and cure vision loss from diabetes
Arielle Cilaire
Arielle Cilaire is a staff member of our partner Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF). Arielle’s journey with her eye health took an unexpected turn during the pandemic. After years of regular check-ups with an ophthalmologist, she went to a retinal specialist. Just a year after giving birth, she received shocking news: “You have diabetic retinal disease (DRD) in both eyes, stronger in your left.” Arielle had no previous signs and learned that pregnancy could accelerate DRD. The doctor emphasized that all people with T1D should see a retina specialist.
A year later, Arielle had to undergo invasive laser treatments, eye injections, and vitrectomy surgery, in efforts to save her vision. Having lived with diabetes for 32 years, Arielle’s vision-saving interventions reflect progress, but also how much work still needs to be done to offer hope of better ways to diagnose early, predict the risk of progression, and prevent vision-threatening DRD for everyone with diabetes.
Variety Announces: The Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative Launches Diabetes Research PSA Campaign With Kevin Kline, Oprah Winfrey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
By Variety’s Jack Dunn
The Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative has launched its first public service announcement campaign, which features narration by Academy Award winner Kevin Kline and additional remarks from Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon. The PSA campaign was created to educate the public on the need for medical research toward the cure of diabetic retinal disease, which afflicted Moore toward the end of her life.
Directed by James Keach, the PSA will run for one year to spread the public service message: “The Sight You Save May Be That of Someone You Love.”
“Mary’s passion and dedication inspired me many years ago to advocate for diabetes research and treatment,” said Kline. “This PSA brings Mary’s story to audiences and humanizes her experience living with diabetes while celebrating the collaborative spirit she was known for in the entertainment industry. Through MTM Vision, Mary’s cause shines on reaching hearts far and wide, just as she did on television for all of us.”
Founded in 2018, the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative is a global non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development of new treatments and therapies to help preserve and restore vision in people with diabetic retinal disease. Moore, the beloved star of landmark CBS comedies “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and an Oscar nominee for 1980’s “Ordinary People,” died in 2017 at age 80.
“Diabetic Retinal Disease is the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults in the world, affecting millions and millions of people, yet we do not know what we must do to prevent and cure it,” added Dr. S. Robert Levine, Moore’s husband and founder and CEO of MTM Vision. “Our new PSA was created to address the critical need to support research for a cure for DRD. We are committed to creating better ways to diagnose DRD, personalize treatments in the early stages, and find ways to restore vision in later-stage disease.”
In June, the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative unveiled its partnership with Variety. Kristen Wiig was honored with the inaugural Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award, presented as part of Variety‘s annual TV FYC Fest. The actor who rocketed to fame on “Saturday Night Live” was saluted for her impact on entertainment as a writer, actor, producer and entrepreneur.
MTM Vision’s Founder and CEO, Dr. S. Robert Levine is featured in “Leaders” Magazine
MTM Vision’s Founder and CEO, Dr. S. Robert Levine is featured in “Leaders,” a worldwide magazine that explores the broad range of leadership thoughts and visions of the world’s most influential people. Here is an excerpt from the article:
“With MTM Vision, Levine is disrupting the status quo, as Mary did throughout her life, to call attention to the fact that: we don’t know what we must about retinal disease in diabetes in order to cure it; the current way we diagnose it and plan treatment is outmoded and directed toward later stage disease; and, there are known obstacles that must be overcome in order to accelerate the development of new treatments that can stop vision loss and ultimately cure blindness from diabetes. He has brought together the best and the brightest scientists and clinicians in the world to solve this life-changing complication of diabetes, the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults globally.”
Kristen Wiig Receives The Inaugural Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award
At this year’s Variety TV FYC Fest, Variety teamed up with the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative to present the inaugural Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award to Oscar-nominated writer, actor and producer Kristen Wiig. Kristen was recognized for her extensive and groundbreaking achievements in storytelling, matching Mary’s continuing extraordinary impact on the entertainment industry.
“Kristen is indeed a true Mary. A multi-hyphenate, critically acclaimed creator of moments of joy and occasions of reflection that move and make us better,” said Dr. S. Robert Levine, founder and CEO of the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative. “Kristen also shares a creative driver with Mary, what Kristen has called ‘the need to be a little uncomfortable.’ Or as Mary once put it, ‘Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.’”
“I’m a little speechless,” Wiig said upon receiving the award. “I grew up watching Mary, and she was such an unbelievable performer in person, and this business is weird. It can be hard to navigate, especially as a woman, especially back then, and she just did it so full of grace. So this just means so much to me.”
Dr. S. Robert Levine Presents Variety Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award to Kristen Wiig
In her heart, Mary was a dancer.
She worshipped Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, and Cyd Charisse and wished she could dance like them.
Mary had a dancer’s discipline, work ethic, drive to perfection, and willingness to take risks — literal leaps of faith — with a clear understanding of what every ballerina knows… that to create something that will move people and bring audiences to their feet, your toes were going to get bloody.
But most of all… it was in dance that Mary found her true joy….
Diabetes stole this joy from her… because it stole her vision
Over time, it became a great challenge for her to walk across a room and avoid obstacles, judge changes in grades, walk down stairs, or be physically active in low light… making a once fiercely independent woman, unable to get around on her own, unable to read, and unable to sustain her autonomy…
As International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, now Breakthrough T1D, Mary voiced the fears and hopes of people and families affected by diabetes. She helped raise awareness of it’s devastating consequences and the promise of research.
Sadly though, diabetes remains the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults, with tens of millions of people, globally, suffering vision stealing diabetic retinal disease and with every one of the hundreds of millions of people with diabetes being at risk of vision loss and blindness….
Despite her challenges, Mary believed the best way to heal ourselves was to do what we could to help others.
Her wish was that future generations with diabetes would not have to experience the challenges she had, and she dreamed that one day there would be a world without vision loss and blindness from diabetes.
The Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative was launched to honor Mary’s contributions to diabetes awareness and research – and our mission is straightforward: To accelerate the development of new treatments to prevent and cure diabetic retinal disease.
When Dea Lawrence, the amazing COO of Variety, came to me with the BIG IDEA of partnering with the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative to create an award in Mary’s name to recognize a new generation of entertainment industry leaders, I, of course, said “yes.” But then my thoughts turned quickly to the question, “Who would be worthy?” One thing was sure, though: they had to be “a Mary.”
So, I wrote down a list of Mary attributes to share with Dea to inform our selection process… that list included:
Brilliant, Beautiful, Accessible;
Generous, Kind, Compassionate;
Honest, Brave, Real;
Innovator, Role Model, Risk-taker;
Actor, Comedian, Dancer, Singer, Writer;
Or as James L. Brooks, who with Allan Burns, created the Mary Tyler Moore Show put it only a few nights after Mary’s passing upon his receiving the Producer’s Guild’s Norman Lear Achievement Award:
“I promise you as a woman, she was everything you sensed. She had dignity, worth, wit, she was intrinsically valiant, she was the woman who was at the center of the work and who never complained. She made grace contagious”
Well, Dea, Michelle, and the Variety team came through big time in selecting Kristen Wiig for the Inaugural Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award.
All it took for me to know that Kristen was truly “the one” was watching her evocative dance with Maddie Ziegler for Sia’s performance of “Chandelier” at the 2015 Grammy Awards, and witnessing the perfectionist detail in her brilliant Ann-Margaret impersonation, the joyfulness of Target Lady, the physicality of her Gloria Swanson, Katherine Hepburn, Aunt Sue, and Gilly…and the creative genius of so many more of her other sketch characters.
But then there was also her “can’t take your eyes off her” performance as Alice Klieg, a lottery winner with borderline personality disorder in Welcome to Me and her multi-layered performance as Annie joined with her honking, laugh-out-loud funny, Oscar nominated writing for Bridesmaids.
And then, finally, there is this quote from comedy icon and “friend of Mary”, Carol Burnett about her co-star, Kristen’s performance in the Season 1 finale of Palm Royale: “That scene is one of the greatest pieces of acting I have ever seen in my life,… it was a masterclass in acting, with being funny, with being in tears, with losing it.” Reading this quote gave me chills, as it flashed fond memories of Mary’s comedy breakout scene in the “My Blonde Haired Brunette” episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show’s first season.
So Kristen is, indeed, a true Mary – a multi-hyphenate, award winning creator of moments of joy and occasions of reflection that move us and make us better.
Kristen also shares a creative driver with Mary — what Kristen has called “the need to be a little uncomfortable” or as Mary once put it:
“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”
So let me please share my gratitude to Dea, Michelle, and Variety for making this moment possible, and introduce to you, the recipient of Variety’s Inaugural Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award – the singularly talented, remarkably funny, truly brave, Kristen Wiig.
-Dr. S. Robert Levine
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