Rusty Kelley

Dr. Kelley is the managing director of the Retinal Degeneration Fund, the venture arm of the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

Rusty brings over 25 years of experience in identifying, funding and developing biotechnologies to his leadership role. Rusty helped launch the fund as a Senior VP of Investments, serving the Foundation’s therapeutic mission to develop therapeutics for inherited retinal dystrophies.

Prior to his current role, Rusty directed the translational and interdisciplinary science funding portfolios at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. After serving on the bench as a scientist, Rusty served a a director, and led preclinical at Tengion, a tissue engineering firm that spun-out of Boston Children’s Hospital and Wake Forest University.

Rusty also holds experience in clinical development at PPD, Inc. where he helped manage clinical trials in the divisions of Medicine, NIH trials and Infectious Disease, and as a bench scientist in the pharmaceutics and analytical chemistry divisions for AAIPharma.

Rusty received a BA in Chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill, a PhD in Pharmacology at LSU’s Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. He was awarded an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship in the School of Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill, and recently earned an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

In addition to being a Board director of SparingVision, Rusty is currently a founding Board director of Opus Genetics, and Board observer for Atsena Therapeutics, Nacuity Pharmaceuticals, and Vedere Bio. He also serves as a Board Director of DC-based Health Research Alliance & North Carolina’s Council for Entrepreneurial Development.