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Who we are

Current Lab Members

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Ruben Adler M.D. (PI)

Jane Cione

Minda McNally (senior lab technician)

Valeria Canto Soler, Ph.D. (post doc)

Hu Huang, Ph.D. (post-doc)

Xiaochun Liu Ph.D.(post doc)

Soledad Romero (visiting scientist)

Karl Wahlin (graduate student)

Alyssa Katzenelson (graduate student)

Our Institute

The Wilmer Eye Institute is an internationally recognized leader in research asociated with vision and disease. Ruben Adler is a member of the faculty in the Departments of Ophthalmology, Department of Neurosciences, and Cell and Molecular Medicine.

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This laboratory uses a multidisciplinary approach to study the Genetic and Microenvironmental Factors Regulating the Survival and Differentiation of Retinal Photoreceptors and Neurons

Development

Normal vision requires the coordinated activities of several specialized retinal cell types, including cone and rod photoreceptors, horizontal, bipolar, amacrine and ganglion neurons, and glial cells, which are organized in a topographically precise laminar pattern in the mature retina. In the early embryo, however, the future retina appears as a very simple neuroepithelium, in which all cells are morphologically homogeneous and mitotically active. The development of each retinal cell, therefore, involves a series of divisions, including a critical "terminal" mitosis, after which the cell migrates to one of the retinal layers, differentiates into a cell type consistent with its intraretinal position, and forms synaptic contacts with appropriate pre- and post-synaptic partners. Many of the cells, in addition, undergo programmed death during retinal development

F

or neurons to relay information from one cell to the next they must be capable of releasing packets of chemical information, called neurotransmitters, at specialized sites called synapses. From early stiduies of the peripheral cholinergic neuromuscular junction neurobiologists have come to understand that development of these synapses occurs through ordered assembly requiring mutually coordinated signals between pre-and postsynaptic cells. Until recently, however, the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern this process within the CNS, particularly of the retina, were poorlyunderstood. In the case of the retina, the elucidation of these mechanisms has more than just academic interest since they could contribute significantly to the treatment of blinding retinaldegenerations...

the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating development is important not only because of their intrinsic relevance to developmental neurobiology, but also because alterations of these and related mechanisms appear to be involved in the genesis of blinding degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degenerations. Nearly twenty years ago it was demonstrated that some neurotrophic factors can delay the progression of retinal degeneration whether caused by genetic or environmental factors. Despite these promising results little clinical treatment has arisen from this work and we still know surprisingly little about the mechanisms of this rescue. In 2000 our lab reported that this rescue could be mediated indirectly through Muller glia....