The laboratory would like to congratulate Emma Navratil on being selected to receive the Ballard Seashore Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Iowa!
This fellowship program provides an opportunity for Ph.D. students to benefit from a final semester of protected and supported time to focus on completing their scholarly research activities and the writing of their dissertations.
In a recent paper by Navratil et al, we examined the distribution and partial identities of sialic acids in human choroid, retinal pigment epithelium, photoreceptors, and lesions of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) using lectin histochemistry and microscopy.
Our lab recently published a study led by Dr. Kelly Mulfaul in which we measured the levels of 40 different cytokines (proteins that regulate the immune system) in a cohort of human eyes. An example of a cytokine array is depicted, in which the intensity of the green dots reveals the abundance of a tested protein. Levels of Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF) were found to be elevated in the choroid of eyes with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) compared to age-matched individuals without AMD.
Our lab recently published a new study involving 99 human donor eyes in which degenerating blood vessels were measured in eyes with healthy aging, early stage macular degeneration, and late stage dry macular degeneration (geographic atrophy). We observed a progressive degeneration of choriocapillaris vessels with advancing macular degeneration, and this blood vessel loss occurred in advance of death of other cell types.
The lab is extremely proud of MD/PhD student Nathaniel K. Mullin (Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Genetics) who successfully defended his dissertation, “Cellular and molecular consequences of genetic variants in inherited retinal disease”. Nate gave a fantastic presentation of his thesis work!
He is (center) pictured here with co-mentors Drs. Mullins (left) and Tucker (right).
In a recent paper by Voigt et al, we studied how gene expression is altered in focal areas of pathology by performing spatial RNA sequencing on a human donor eye with macular neovascularization as well as a healthy control donor. Then, we performed differential expression to identify genes enriched within the area of macular neovascularization and used deconvolution algorithms to predict the originating cell type of these dysregulated genes.
So proud of our lab's own Lauryn Renze, who was the Science, Health and Engineering 2023 Student Employee of the Year @uiowa! Way to go, Lauryn!
A number of ocular diseases involving the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) are known to selectively injure the central region of the retina, but the molecular behavior of RPE cells from different regions is not well understood.
Excited to share our new #singlecell paper on choroidal #endothelial_cells and #macrophages in human eyes with/without #macular_degeneration! All data available at GEO and https://singlecell-eye.org.
Our lab recently published a new report on the role of local synthesis of the Complement Factor H gene product in protecting choroidal endothelial cells from deposition of the complement MAC complex, a major source of cellular injury in AMD. Kelly used immortalized choroidal endothelial cells and induced pluripotent stem cells to determine that local expression of the Factor H protein is sufficient to increase cellular protection.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/path.5867