Samuel Wu
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Neuroscience
The retina, the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye, is one of the best places to study how networks of nerve cells compute. Its circuits can be switched on selectively with a natural stimulus: light.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Biophysics
- Topics
retina
visual neuroscience
rod photoreceptors
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2030
What they work on
- Measure how electrical signals spread through the coupled network of rod photoreceptors, and how HCN ion channels shape this network behavior, using simultaneous multi-patch recordings.
- Compare light-response size, shape, and timing of six bipolar cell types and three ganglion cell groups recorded at once in the same dark-adapted retina, and test how light adaptation changes them.
- Map synaptic connections between rods at different retinal locations and bipolar cell types, and define the role of horizontal cells in the rod-to-cone feedback pathway.
- Build a connectivity map between bipolar and ganglion cell types and determine how each bipolar cell contributes to ganglion cell light responses.
- Provide shared microscopy, instrumentation, animal vision testing (OCT, ERG, patch clamp), and genomics services to vision research labs through a core facility.
More about the research
Retinas across vertebrate species are built in similar ways, so findings can carry over to humans. Even so, a full catalog of retinal cell types and their wiring is still missing.
Why it matters
Many blinding diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration, congenital stationary night blindness, and glaucoma, are thought to involve faulty synaptic circuits in the retina. Mapping how retinal neurons connect and work together could reveal how synaptic problems contribute to these disorders. The shared vision core supports wider research into their causes.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Nancy Philp
Thomas Jefferson University, PA·Neuroscience
Test whether the retinal pigment epithelium keeps some glucose for its own biosynthetic and phagocytic activities, using RPE-iΔGlut1 mice that lack the glucose transporter GLUT1 in the RPE.
Donald Miller
Indiana University, IN·Biomedical Engineering
Measure the spectral sensitivity, or color response, of individual photoreceptors in the living human eye using adaptive-optics optical coherence tomography (AO-OCT) with phase-sensitive detection.
Wendy Liu
Stanford University, CA·Neuroscience·Early-career
Determine which ultrasound parameters effectively stimulate retinal ganglion cells in the living eye, using a transparent ultrasound transducer together with two-photon calcium imaging of genetically encoded calcium indicators in animal models.
The school
Baylor College of Medicine: 38 labs on PI Pages, $881M a year on research, 115 research doctorates a year.
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