Research
Our research is focused on studying the structure and function of the normal and diseased retina at the level of single cells in the living human eye. We use advanced optical imaging techniques with adaptive optics to study the cellular mosaics of the retina, from the retinal pigmented epithelial cells that line the back of the eye, to the photoreceptors that absorb light and initiate the first step of seeing, to the retinal ganglion cells whose parallel neural circuits process visual information and send it along to the rest of the brain. Visual function can be impaired when any of the different classes of cells in the retina are damaged or lost from causes such as genetic abnormalities, disease or trauma. Some specific diseases of focus for us include age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and inherited retinal degenerations ...