Profiles

I hold the Grace and Walter Lantz Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology. My research interests have centered on the physiological function of retinal photoreceptor cells, the rods and cones. In particular, I have studied mechanisms of phototransduction activation and regulation, and how the photoreceptor cell output is represented in the retinal circuitry. Since 2005, the major research focus of my independent laboratory has been in using transgenic mice that display perturbations in photoreceptor function, or retinal connectivity, to establish how rod and cone photoreceptors relay light-evoked signals to bipolar cells over a wide range of light intensities. Much of this work has focused on how single-photon responses are transmitted across the retinal circuitry under conditions where few of the rods are generating them. However, more recently the laboratory has endeavored to establish the mechanisms by which both rod and cone photoreceptors function over a wide range of light intensities, and how retinal function is compromised following retinal degeneration.