BLIND - Key Persons

Inherited and acquired diseases of the retina are a significant cause of incurable vision loss worldwide. Closer to home Dr. Gamm sees the impact of retinal degenerative diseases (RDD) on afflicted individuals in his pediatric ophthalmology practice at the University of Wisconsin. His laboratory at the Waisman Center utilizes stem cell technology to study human retinal development in vitro and devise therapeutic applications for RDD. This work has led to the identification, culture, and study of human retinal precursor cells and pigmented epithelial cells.Dr. Gamm's interest is in comparing the behavior of these specific cell populations under different conditions, using cortical precursor cells as an important control. He is using molecular and genetic techniques to manipulate the fates and utility of these cells, thus expanding their potential therapeutic value. Knowledge obtained from these studies is applied to transplantation experiments in animal models of retinal degeneration. Dr. Gamm uses embryonic stem cells to investigate the molecular steps involved in the production of retinal cell types, including photoreceptors. The hope is that these efforts will contribute to the development of effective interventions for visually disability retinal disorders such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.

Job Titles:

• Assistant Professor, Ophthalmology, Byers Eye Institute, Stanford

Assistant Professor, Ophthalmology, Byers Eye Institute, Stanford University Medical Center and by courtesy, Chemical Engineering Co-Director, Ophthalmic Innovation Program and Director, Teleophthalmology VA Palo Alto Health Care System

Job Titles:

• Professor and Director of Research / Shiley Eye Center

Job Titles:

• Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, the Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School / Research: "Role of Runx1 in Retinopathy of Prematurity"

Our lab is primarily interested in understanding the vascular biology of a retinal vascular disorders. Specifically, our lab is interested in the process of aberrant angiogenesis and understanding how this process affects diseases including retinopathy of prematurity, diabetic retinopathy, wet age-related macular degeneration, and vascular occlusions. Our lab recently identified Runx1 to be a key mediator of pathologic angiogenesis using fibrovascular membranes from patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy. Dr. Kim is now attempting to expand the potential role of Runx1 into other diseases such as retinopathy of prematurity. Understanding this fundamental disease mechanism may shed new light unto potential therapeutic targets to regulate aberrant angiogenesis within the eye and prevent a wide array of sight threatening conditions. Thus, using a combination of both clinical insights and basic scientific techniques, Dr. Kim's lab attempts to elucidate our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of retinal vascular disease. As a former NIH sponsored K12 recipient, Dr. Kim other research interests include the regulated cell death mechanisms of retinal toxicities as well as computational modeling of oxygen distribution in age-related macular degeneration.

Job Titles:

• Administrator

Job Titles:

• Chairman

Dr. Myung leads a translational research laboratory focused on two areas of clinical need: (1) ophthalmic regenerative medicine through tissue engineering and drug delivery, and (2) global health through mobile technologies and telemedicine. His research group takes an interdisciplinary approach toward fostering regeneration of ocular tissues, by using chemistry to not only build biomimetic cellular architectures but also to target and release bioactive molecules to promote healing. Current projects are directed toward the localized delivery of growth factors and/or stem cells to wound sites, the synthesis of bioactive wound dressings and vehicles, and the creation of biopolymeric tissue scaffolds. Dr. Myung and colleagues also investigate the role of mobile technologies in enabling diagnostics and patient care outside of traditional health care settings. His goal is to challenge current paradigms of eye care delivery through new digital health technologies and telemedicine to increase access to care in resource-limited settings both in the US and abroad.

In 2021, Dr. Khanal established his own research lab at the UAB School of Optometry where he now leads an independent research program focused on myopia and visual electrophysiology. Dr. Khanal's research support portfolio includes grants from the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind Inc., American Academy of Optometry, and UAB Vision Science Research Center for basic and clinical myopia research projects.

Dr. Baccus studies how the circuitry of the retina translates the visual scene into electrical impulses in the optic nerve. Visual perception is initiated by the molecules, cells and synapses of the retina, acting together to process and compress visual information into a sequence of spikes in a population of nerve fibers. One of the largest gaps in neuroscience lies in the explaining of systems-level processes like visual processing in terms of cellular-level mechanisms. This problem is tractable in the retina because of its experimental accessibility, and the substantial amount already known about basic retinal cell types and functions. Dr. Baccus' goal is to extract general principles of computation in neural circuits, and to explain specific retinal visual processes such as adaptation to contrast and image statistics, and the detection of moving objects. To do this, we use a versatile set of experimental and theoretical techniques. While projecting visual scenes from a video monitor onto the isolated retina, an extracellular multielectrode array is used to record a substantial fraction of the output of a small patch of retina. Simultaneously, we record intracellularly from retinal interneurons in order to monitor and perturb single cells as the circuit operates. To measure the activity of both populations of interneurons and output neurons, we record visual responses optically using two-photon imaging while simultaneously recording with a multielectrode array. Finally, all of this data is assembled and interpreted in the context of mathematical models to predict and explain the output of the retinal circuit.

Job Titles:

• Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences / Director, AMD Histopathology Lab
• Professor

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor
• Department of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology & Visual Science / Yale University