Working Together to Understand, Protect and Restore Vision
It is our pleasure to announce the recipients of our 2023 Distinguished Paper Award. This year, the McPherson ERI honored 5 trainees for their outstanding, published vision research. This year’s winners will be recognized during a short ceremony at our upcoming 2024 MERI-at-a-Glance event (Friday, February 23rd). Further information on them and their papers can be found here.
Freya Mowat Ever wonder what kind of TV shows your dog might choose if they could work the remote control? If so, check out this UW–Madison News article on McPherson ERI Member Freya Mowat’s research on canine vision. Prof. Mowat’s study, which began 2 years ago, focuses on uncovering the factors influencing dogs’ interest in interacting with …
It is our pleasure to announce the recipients of our second Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) Awards competition, as well as the recipient of our very first Glaucoma and Optic Neuropathies Award competition. This year, Prof. Nader Sheibani and Assistant Prof. Ismail Zaitoun have won our two AMD Awards, Prof. Kimberly Stepien has won the RP Award, and Prof. Rob Nickells has won the …
Coat Protein Complex II (COPII) is an enormously important protein that is responsible for transporting approximately one third of all proteins that function in mammalian cells. In a recently published paper in Nature Communication, the Audhya team describes how, using genome editing and live cell imaging, they were able to identify that a single protein called Sec23 …
Research by MERI Director David Gamm’s laboratory has made the list of standout UW–Madison research in 2023! You can find more information about this work on lab-grown retinal cells here and in this article by Ludwig et al. published in Cell Reports.
It is our pleasure to announce that Theo Bucci, Bikalpa Ghimire, Jake Khoussine, Michele Salzman, and Tania Sharmin are our 2023 Kenzi Valentyn Vision Research Grant recipients! These one-year grants of $7500 each are funded by the Institute’s annual Cycle for Sight event, which raises money to support research in McPherson ERI member labs and programs. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, led by …
Congratulations to McPherson ERI members Ari Rosenberg and Lowell W. Thompson on their recent publication ‘Hierarchical computation of 3D motion across macaque areas MT and FST! This paper, which was published yesterday in Cell Reports, reveals that the macaque middle temporal (MT) area is largely specialized for processing 2D retinal motion and the neighboring fundus of the superior temporal sulcus …
Graduate student Jake Khoussine won this year’s Vision Sciences Poster Presentation Competition with his poster “Retinal output dysfunction in a model of congenital stationary night blindness”. Graduate student Michele Salzman and Research intern Anoushka Kuckreja took home Honorable Mentions this year. Special thanks to both Nikon and the University Bookstore for supplying prizes for this …
Computational tool helps uncover gene networks of cell fate A recently published study from the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery (WID), titled Inference of cell type-specific gene regulatory networks on cell lineages from single cell omic datasets integrates both computational and biological sciences by using machine learning to better understand the driving forces of cellular identity. …
Nonviral base editing of KCNJ13 mutation preserves vision in a model of inherited retinal channelopathy We are pleased to announce that a new study, with contributions by several MERI members, has just been published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation! The paper, entitled ‘Nonviral base editing of KCNJ13 mutation preserves vision in a model of …