The human retina at single cell resolution: functional architecture, disease mechanism and therapy development

ended

Vision is of key importance for humans and losing vision has a major effect on day-to-day life. Vision starts in the retina, where an image captured by photoreceptors is processed by retinal circuits built from more than hundred cell types. Information flows from the retina via the thalamus to a number of cortical areas. Despite the large number of cortical neurons involved in vision, most blinding diseases originate in the retina and are cell-type specific. Although the vertebrate retina has a conserved cellular architecture, only a few animal models of visual diseases reproduce the pathology found in humans. Therefore, there is a major need for understanding the healthy and the disease-affected human retina. Recently my laboratory developed a set of new technologies that enable us to study the human retina, to understand its functional architecture and disease mechanism in its cell types, and so to develop therapies. Using these technologies, we first aim to describe the functional diversity as well as the function of ganglion cell types and their circuits in the human retina. Second, we aim to reveal mechanisms of cell-type vulnerability in human and mouse retinas. Third, we aim to provide proof of principle for cell type-targeted near infrared vision restoration in the human retina. Taken together, this study will provide insights into the structure, function, and mechanisms of disease of the cell types in the human visual system and will investigate a new approach to restore vision in patients with blinding diseases.