Maribel Vazquez
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Biomedical Engineering
The nerve cells in the retina that turn light into brain signals need a tightly controlled chemical environment. The blood-retinal barrier, which limits what passes from blood into the retina, provides it.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
Physiology
- Topics
blood-retinal barrier
iBRB
Müller glia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Examine how combined endothelial cell and Müller glia responses change cell growth, shape, tight junction protein expression, and barrier resistance and permeability in co-cultures that mimic the inner blood-retinal barrier.
- Develop a layered microfluidic system with interstitial flow to measure transport of bloodborne molecules of different sizes from endothelial cells to Müller glia and identify through-cell versus between-cell routes.
- Determine how advanced glycation end products, via reactive oxygen species that raise GLUT-1 and VEGF, alter barrier resistance and permeability across endothelial and Müller glia layers.
More about the research
When this barrier fails, the adult retina is damaged over time, a major cause of vision loss. Most research credits the barrier to endothelial cells (EC), which line retinal blood vessels. But Müller glia (MG), support cells found only in the retina, wrap around these vessels and also affect how the barrier holds up under stress. How the two cell types work together is poorly understood.
Why it matters
Breakdown of the blood-retinal barrier is a major cause of vision loss in adults. Showing how Müller glia help control this barrier, including under the sugar-related stress of advanced glycation end products, could point toward glia-based therapies. A realistic lab model of the barrier could also help test such approaches.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Dritan Agalliu
Columbia University, NY·Neuroscience
Test how glutamate levels regulate deep retinal vessel growth and blood-retina barrier integrity, using Vglut1 mutant mice (no glutamate release) and Gnat1 mutant mice (constant release), and how this interacts with acetylcholine-driven activity waves.
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.
Caitlyn Collins
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether advanced glycation end product (AGE) crosslinks, sugar-driven links in bone collagen, reduce fracture resistance in human tibia and fibula from healthy and type-2 diabetic donors.
The school
Rutgers University-New Brunswick: 57 labs on PI Pages, $837M a year on research, 713 research doctorates a year.
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