Analyzing Genes Involved in Proper Retinal Development

Interns

Nuha Benali - Psychological & Brain Sciences

Charlotte Chen - Biochemistry-Molecular Biology/Computer Science

Melanie Contreras - Biology

Tiffany Dorgalli - Chemistry/Biochemistry

Jessy Gonzalez - Biology/Physiology

Vega Hall - Chemistry

Mateo Hernandez - Chemistry/Biochemistry

Aarya Kulkarni - Chemical Engineering

Kevin Ogbonna - Pharmacology

Alizabet Pineda - Biopsychology

Alex Reed - Biopsychology

Chiamaka Utom - Psychological and Brain Sciences

Project Description

The retina is an important tissue found in the back of the eye responsible for converting light into an electrical signal, which eventually your brain will interpret, resulting in vision. Unfortunately, when the retina does not develop properly or degrades, it results in blinding diseases. In order to design successful therapies to combat this, the steps in development must be critically observed and analyzed. Our lab is interested in determining genes that are critical in this development, and we utilize the mouse as a model organism. Students will use ImageJ to count different retinal cell populations and calculate retinal areas in order to determine the effects of removing a proapoptotic (pro-death) gene, Bax, which is normally expressed in the retina.