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Neuroinformatics
Fundamental Issues in Vision Research

Directors: Sandra Masur, Sinai School of Medicine, and David Papermaster, University of Connecticut Health Center

Course Date: August 17 - August 30, 2008. Not offered in 2009.
Online Application Form, (PDF) Deadline: March 21, 2008
2006 Seminars | 2006 Schedule (PDF)

A lecture and laboratory course, experimentally-based, and problem-oriented, intended for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows currently training in molecular biology, cell biology, and neurosciences and who are not currently involved in vision research, and others in early stages of vision research who wish to broaden their interests in the field. Limited to 24 students.

The goal of this course is to present, in depth, the exciting theoretical and experimental approaches to fundamental research problems in vision so that students can evaluate the potential for active research in this field. The faculty will describe and direct laboratories of ongoing research in the tissues of the eye of invertebrates and vertebrates. Proposed areas of study include: CORNEA: (a) epithelium: stem cells, barrier function, immunology, molecular biology of homeobox genes, (b) stroma: wound healing, neovacularization, matrix structure and remodeling, and (c) transplantation. ANTERIOR CHAMBER AND LENS: (a) molecular mechanisms of ocular morphogenesis, (b) molecular, cellular, and developmental biology of the lens and cornea, with emphasis on the regulation and evolution of gene expression, (c) molecular and cellular basis of transparency and cataract formation, (d) ion channels, cell junctions, and transporters in the function of the cornea, lens, and ciliary epithelium, and (e) molecular and cellular control of the extracellular matrix. RETINA: (a) photoreceptors: molecular biology of signal transduction and transmission; biosynthesis of membrane proteins in the retina; the problem of sorting and vectorial transport of outer segment; physiology of signal reception and transmission: neurotransmitters, circadian regulation; molecular and cellular biology of inherited and age-related retinal degenerations; (b) pigment epithelium: molecular and cellular studies of polarity of membrane proteins; synthesis of interphotoreceptor matrix, growth factors and retinoid carrier proteins; transplantation; (c) central connections: neurophysiology of transmission; contrast and color perception and the physiology of amblyopia; developmental biology retinal organization.

The costs of attending the course, including travel, housing and meals at MBL, are fully supported by the National Eye Institute, NIH.

2008 Course Faculty and Lecturers:  

Robert Barlow, Institute for Sensory Research, Syracuse University
Ben Barres, Stanford University
David Beebe, Washington University
Eliot Berson, Harvard Medical School
Dean Bok, Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA Medical School
Rick Born, Harvard Medical School

Barbara Chapman, University of California, Davis

Jeannie Chen, USC Keck School of Medicine
Nansi Colley, University of Wisconsin
Dusanka Deretic, University of New Mexico
Walter Gehring, Biozentrum, University of Basel
Marion Gordon, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University

Alecia Gross, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Jonathan Horton, University of California, San Francisco
Joseph Horwitz, Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA Medical School

Abbie Jensen, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Simon John, Jackson Laboratory Bar Harbor
Richard Lang, Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Jennifer LaVail, University of California, San Francisco
Ellen Liberman, National Eye Institute, NIH
Marsha Moses, Harvard Medical School
Jerry Niederkorn, UT Southwestern Medical Center

Mary Ann Stepp, George Washington University Medical Center

Enrica Strettoi, Italian National Research Council

Stephen Sugrue, University of Florida College of Medicine

Jody Summers Rada, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences

Theodore Wensel, Baylor College of Medicine

 
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