Brian Samuels
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Neuroscience
Glaucoma is a progressive, irreversible condition that can cause blindness, and it affects millions of people worldwide. The only risk factor that doctors can change is intraocular pressure (IOP), the fluid pressure inside the eye.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
glaucoma
intraocular pressure
orexin
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2029
What they work on
- Test whether the brainstem raphe pallidus relays the eye-pressure rise caused by stimulating the dorsomedial hypothalamus/perifornical region, by measuring how much orexin receptor blockers injected into the raphe pallidus reduce the IOP response.
- Determine whether orexin receptors in the eye itself contribute, by giving orexin receptor antagonists into the eye's anterior chamber and measuring effects on brain-triggered IOP rises and aqueous humor flow.
- Test whether natural variants in the three genes of the orexin signaling system are linked to intraocular pressure in people, using a candidate gene approach and Mendelian randomization with All of Us and UK Biobank genomic data.
- Measure circadian IOP rhythms and brain-stimulated IOP rises in transgenic mice lacking functional orexin peptide or either orexin receptor.
More about the research
IOP rises and falls over the course of the day, but it is still unclear how the brain controls these daily rhythms. Finding the brain regions and chemical signals involved could point to new targets for glaucoma treatment.
Why it matters
Lowering eye pressure is currently the only way to slow glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness. By showing how brain regions and orexin signaling drive rises in eye pressure and its daily rhythm, this work could identify new targets for glaucoma therapy. People with glaucoma, or at risk for it, could eventually benefit from treatments that act on these pathways.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Mihyun Nam
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Compare levels of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), sugar-damaged proteins, in trabecular meshwork tissue from primary open-angle glaucoma patients and healthy controls.
Gillian McLellan
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Optimize delivery of a feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)-based lentiviral vector to trabecular meshwork cells, the eye's fluid-drainage tissue, in cultured feline cells and glaucomatous cat eyes, selecting vector and dose for efficiency, tissue specificity and safety.
Raghu Krishnamoorthy
University of North Texas Health Science Center, TX·Pharmacology
Determine whether endothelin-1 (ET-1), a blood-vessel-tightening protein, acts through its ETA and ETB receptors to reduce mitophagy, the removal of damaged mitochondria, in retinal ganglion cells.
The school
University of Alabama at Birmingham: 45 labs on PI Pages, $866M a year on research, 166 research doctorates a year.
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