One Foot, In Front Of The Other…

Pigmented Bone Spicules

Our NIH R01 Retinal Remodeling renewal grant has been submitted.

It feels like all we’ve been doing this year has been working, non-stop and I need a break to recharge my batteries.  It has been an insanely productive year, with 8 papers so far published or in press, and a couple grant renewals submitted.  There will be more yet to come this year, grants and papers…  But I also need to spend some time doing photography as the year is half over.  While there have been photographs I’ve been happy with this year, I’ve not made any images that I’ve been *really* happy with.

Photography is the filter I use to remind me of why I do the vision research and the image above, really drives me.  This is a microscopic image from a human retina with a degenerative disease that causes the pigment in the retinal pigment epithelium to clump up and be pulled down into the retina, creating these structures called pigmented bone spicules. They are the hallmarks of advanced retinal degeneration, meaning this area of retina from this person, was blind.

If we are to hope to prevent blindness or cure blindness, we have to understand the process by which we go blind in the first place. It turns out, we have some insight into the process that may have implications into other diseases like Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s.

One foot, in front of the other…

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