Approximately 67 million people worldwide are blind due to damage to the retina caused by disease or trauma (World Health Organization, Vision 2020). Diseases effecting the reitna include Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Diabetic Retinopathy and Retinitus Pigmentoso. Retinal cell replacemnt, electrode implantatioon and regenrative strategies hold promise for restoring vision.
Neural retina lamina include the outer nuclear (ONL), outer plexiform (OPL), inner nuclear (INL), inner plexiform (IPL), ganglion cell (GCL) and nerve fiber layers. Muller cells are resident retinal radial glia which form the protective and insulating outer and inner limiting membranes (OLM, ILM).
Nanostructure analysis of stem and neural progenitor cells responding to engineered chemical, mechanical and electromagnetic microenvironments reveal cell response dynamics including viability, cytoskeletal kinetics and neuronal differentiation correlated to differential gene expression.
Electroconductive polymer polypyrrole (PPy) and other biocompatible electroconductive substrates are studied in bioreactors that deliver programmable biomimetic electric waveforms to adherent stem and progenitor cells. Data generated with these techniques define polymer and electric waveform biocompatibility as well as changes in cell physiology and gene expression.
Differential gene expression databases are analyzed to generate libraries of ligands present in healthy and disease nervous tissue that are correlated to receptors expressed on the surface of transplantable cells. A resulting library of ligand-receptor pairs and gene regulatory networks are analyzed to determine signaling pathways capable of improving communication between transplanted migrating cells and […]
Differential expression analysis of cell surface receptors on transplantable cells, are analyzed at protein and mRNA levels. Dynamic changes in receptor localization and expression are analyzed in response to engineered microfluidic gradients of ligands present in nervous system microenvironments.
