Carla Siegfried
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. In some people it starts earlier, progresses faster and more often leads to blindness, depending in part on genetic background.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Genetics
- Topics
glaucoma
trabecular meshwork
intraocular pressure
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Compare gene expression in trabecular meshwork tissue from healthy donors and glaucoma patients at different stages, confirming key genes with RT-qPCR, in situ hybridization and Western blot, with focus on mitochondria and antioxidant defenses.
- Test how different oxygen levels affect mitochondrial quantity and function, reactive oxygen species and antioxidant protection in primary human trabecular meshwork cells from healthy donors and glaucoma patients.
- Assess the effects of candidate antioxidant therapies on cultured human trabecular meshwork cells from glaucoma patients and controls.
- Relate trabecular meshwork dysfunction to genetic ancestry, confirmed by blood and tissue genotyping and mitochondrial DNA haplogroup grouping.
More about the research
High pressure inside the eye is the main risk factor that can be changed. That pressure rises when the trabecular meshwork (TM), the eye's drainage tissue, stops letting fluid out properly. Oxidative damage to TM cells, caused by reactive oxygen species (harmful oxygen-containing molecules), is strongly tied to glaucoma, but what causes that damage is unknown.
Why it matters
By identifying why the eye's drainage tissue fails and why some individuals are more vulnerable, this work could point to new ways to prevent and treat open-angle glaucoma. It may help people at higher genetic risk of early, severe disease and blindness, and could reveal antioxidant or mitochondria-targeted therapies useful to all patients at risk of this blinding disease.
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.
Weiming Mao
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Pharmacology
Test whether activating canonical Wnt signaling prevents steroid-induced high eye pressure in mice, using Wnt reporter mice and conditional knockout mice that lack β-catenin, the pathway's key protein.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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