Melanie Yen is an assistant professor of chemistry at California State University, Channel Islands. She is part of the Team Molecular Artificial Retina project, which is investigating the potential of its product as a treatment to reverse vision loss in patients with advanced eye diseases. The team is composed of chemists, biologists and ophthalmologists at the California Institute of Technology (where the molecule was designed), the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Cal State Channel Islands.