Overview

My lab focuses on retinal repair following inherited and age-associated degeneration and modeling disease-in-a-dish using stem cells technologies. I have been involved in this work since 2004 as a graduate student in Dr. Thomas Reh’s lab. We have developed in vitro methodologies for generating all the various retinal cell types, including retinal neurons and retinal pigment epithelium cells, from both human and mouse embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. I was one of the first to publish directed retinal differentiation protocols in the US and the use of these cells for regenerative medicine. In October 2011, I established my own lab at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA. The research is primarily focused on (1) exploring the potential and challenges in retinal repair and (2) using in vivo models and stem-cell based in vitro model systems to understand various retinal degenerations. In 2018, my lab moved to UCSF’s Department of Ophthalmology and housed at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research to focus on novel stem cell-based retinal therapies and bringing them closer to the clinic.