The Department of Ophthalmology is pleased to announce the start of the Vision Research Journal Club!  This journal club will broadly cover contemporary literature in the visual sciences.  Everyone is welcome – our goal is to assemble the diverse vision research community present within the University and learn from each other.  We will meet the 3rd Friday of each month during the academic year from 12 PM – 1 PM via zoom. We usually have the first author of the selected paper for the first 10-15 min of the JC presentation. Thus, the invited authors could introduce their study and answer or give us a few details of the WHYs and HOWs of their study.
If you are interested in presenting or attending the Journal Club, please contact Dr. Miguel Flores-Bellver to be added to our list.

Previous Speakers

Thursday, October 22nd, 2020: Dr. Kang Li from 3DRetLab- Dr. Canto-Soler Lab presents: “Imaging transplanted photoreceptors in living nonhuman primates with single-cell resolution” by Dr. Ebrahim Aboualizadeh, Alcon.

Thursday, November 19th, 2020: Michelle Pedler from Dr. Petrash Lab presents: “Targeted deletion of fibrillin-1 in the mouse eye results in ectopia lentis and other ocular phenotypes associated with Marfan syndrome” by Dr. Steven Bassnett, Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at Washington University in St. Louis SOM

Friday, December 18th, 2020: Anne Vielle from Dr. Vergara Lab presents: “Cell Types of the Human Retina and Its Organoids at Single-Cell Resolution” by Prof. Botond Roska, MD PhD, Director of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) in Basel, Switzerland.

Friday, January 15th, 2021: Dr. Johanna Rankenberg from Dr. Nagaraj Lab presents: “Reprogramming to recover youthful epigenetic information and restore vision” by Dr. Yuancheng Lu (Harvard Medical School)

Friday, February 19th, 2021: Michael Kaufman M.S. from Dr. Brzezinski Lab presents: “Gene Therapy of Dominant CRX-Leber Congenital Amaurosis using Patient Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Organoids” by Prof. Anand Swaroop, Ph.D. (Neurobiology Neurodegeneration & Repair Laboratory, National Eye Institute, NIH)

Thursday, March 25th, 2021: Ian Purvis from Dr. Brzezinski Lab presents: “Functional expression of complement factor I following AAV-mediated gene delivery in the retina of mice and human cells” by Dreismann et al. 

Friday, April 16th, 2021: Dr. Mihyun Nam from Dr. Nagaraj Lab presents: “Pathological angiogenesis in retinopathy engages
cellular senescence and is amenable to therapeutic elimination via BCL-xL inhibition” by Dr. Sergio Crespo-Garcia (Department of Biochemistry, Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre, University of Montreal, Canada)

Thursday, May 20th, 2021: Hannah Cobb from Dr. Canto-Soler Lab presents: “An alternative approach to produce versatile retinal organoids with accelerated ganglion cell  development” by Philip Wagstaff (a PhD Candidate at the Department of Clinical Genetics, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)