“Influence of Homeostatic Diversity on Neuronal Degeneration in the Retina”
Associate Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
WashU Medicine
Neurodegeneration frequently involves neuron type specific differences in susceptibility. The cellular features that underlie the survival potential of individual neurons are complex and interacting. The Williams lab has established retinal ganglion cells as a model system to study intrinsic differences in neurodegenerative susceptibility. Retinal ganglion cells are ideal for such studies since they are optically accessible, easily targetable for treatment, and are represented by 45 distinct types in mice all with different resilience in the face of patient relevant neurodegeneration models. To understand what homeostatic features drive survival or death outcomes in degeneration, the lab has developed a pipeline of chronic genetically encoded biosensor imaging to track diversity of cellular traits in homeostasis, how these features correlate with survival outcome, and what aberrant dynamics might drive degeneration. This observational pipeline is combined with pharmacological and gene therapy treatments to validate role of intrinsic sates on survival and to potentially develop new therapies to prevent vision loss in clinically relevant disease models.