Retina

Innate immunity and immune effector mechanisms in the retina; oxidative stress and cell death; models of developmental angiogenesis and neovascularization; inflammation and photoreceptor survival; macular degeneration

The major goal of our laboratory research is to identify the molecular mechanism(s) regulating photoreceptor gene expression in the mammalian retina and the implications of these mechanisms for understanding photoreceptor degenerative diseases and developing therapeutic treatments for these diseases.

Analysis of the temporally regulated program of retinal cell type specification.

We are interested in the transcriptional regulatory networks that underlie the development, evolution, and diseases of photoreceptors in the retina. We are taking a multi-disciplinary approach to the problem of how a network of transcription factors orchestrates the expression of distinct cohorts of downstream genes to build this complex micromachine, the photoreceptor cell.

The laboratory studies the role of autophagy in the pathogenesis of eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and other retinal degenerative diseases. 

We would like to understand the principles that guide the assembly of neural circuits and to decipher the way they process information. Our efforts concentrate on the mammalian retina.

The goal of our lab is to identify the structural and developmental principles that turn agglomerations of cells into image processing circuitry.

• Pathogenic mechanisms in diabetic retinopathy
• neuronal damage in diabetes mellitus

Studies in my laboratory aim to determine the role of ATP-mediated (purinergic) neurotransmission in the mammalian retina. 

The Walsh lab studies the local communication between the eye and the adaptive immune system, and how this local immunity can be utilized to improve diagnosis and treatment of ocular autoimmunity.