An MDI Biological Laboratory researcher has won a grant of up to $50,000 to use fruit flies to help study leading causes of blindness. As the inaugural recipient of an award from the William Procter Scientific Innovation Fund, Vicki P. Losick will establish a fruit fly model that mimics cellular dysfunction associated with human retinal diseases, including age-related macular degeneration. “With the aging of the population, age-related macular degeneration is increasingly being viewed as an impending epidemic,” Losick said in a Friday news release.