Working Together to Understand, Protect and Restore Vision
Congratulations to Associate Professor Xin Huang, one of our latest recipients of the MERI Grant Summit Program (GSP) Award! Prof. Huang’s winning research proposal was entitled ‘Neural Mechanisms Underlying Perceptual Organization.’ This project investigates how the visual system selectively integrates local visual elements into a coherent object while segregating different objects from one another based on visual …
Congratulations to Associate Professor Donna Neumann, one of our latest recipients of the MERI Grant Summit Program (GSP) Award! Prof. Neumann’s winning research proposal was entitled ‘Inhibiting repair of the Herpes Simplex Virus genome for therapeutic effect.’ This project investigates the role of cellular single-strand DNA damage repair in the repair of nicks and gaps in HSV-1 …
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 2025 Vision Research Update! The talk, which was given by Dr. David Gamm, covered the Institute’s recent work on inherited retinal disease and age-related macular degeneration and included a Q&A session where members of the public could ask any questions they had on vision research and …
Using a stem cell-derived therapeutic developed over more than a decade in Dr. David Gamm’s lab at UW–Madison, BlueRock Therapeutics has treated the first patient in a new Phase 1/2a clinical trial aimed at a group of inherited retinal disorders (including RP and cone-rod dystrophy). The initiative is the result of a strategic research alliance formed in …
MERI member Karen Schloss (UW Department of Psychology and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery), recently sat down with WPR’s The Larry Meiller Show to discuss her research on how colors influence meaning, behavior, and emotion. Listen to the whole interview here.
A recent study by the Hoon lab published in Current Biology has uncovered new modes of retinal circuit compensation and adaptation in response to impairments seen in congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB). CSNB is a retinal disease where input to a primary retinal pathway is suppressed. Using mouse models that mimic different stages of disease severity, partial …
In this 20th anniversary year of the McPherson Eye Research Institute, the vision gallery features a retrospective of research-inspired images from our fifteen years of Eye Research Institute calendars – exhibiting 45 amazingly engaging images from Institute members’ research, selected from among the ~180 featured in annual calendars. This exhibit also showcases cover designs by …
The latest issue of InSights, the McPherson ERI’s bi-annual newsletter, features articles on treating inherited retinal diseases, the road to whole eyeball transplants, making pig retinal cells to advance eye treatments, and MERI’s new Grant Accelerator Program!
13th Annual Alice R. McPherson Lecture Thursday, May 29th; HSLC Room 1345 Guest Speaker: Shannon E. Boye, PhD (George H. Kitzman Professor of Genetics; Chief, Division of Cellular and Molecular Therapy, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida) Optimizing viral gene delivery for the treatment of X-linked retinoschisis
We’re pleased that Chancellor Mnookin has chosen to highlight research from MERI Director David Gamm’s lab to launch her new webpage on transformative, federally funded work happening right now at UW–Madison. You can read about the Gamm Lab’s research here and learn more about our university’s other impactful, cutting-edge research projects by visiting the Chancellor’s webpage here.