2022 News

	December 16, 2022 Publication – OGTL research published in STAR Protocols Erika Hood, a fourth-year graduate student from the Neuroscience Doctoral Program (NDP), today published a detailed protocol describing the isolation, culture and histological processing of retinal pigment epithelium cells grown as monolayers on porous membrane supports. This ‘drusen in a dish’ model is characterized by the progressive and spontaneous accumulation of sub-RPE deposits containing major protein and lipid components of human drusen, a key pathological hallmark of age-related macular degeneration. The establishment and characterization of Erika's model was performed in collaboration with Dr. Christine Curcio (University of Alabama-Birmingham) and may potentially be used to both study the biogenesis of drusen in AMD and for the evaluation of novel therapeutics. Read the full article here.
	December 01, 2022 Service – Dr Lipinski is appointed Interim Research Director Dr. Daniel M. Lipinski , Associate Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy, was today appointed by Dr Deborah Costakos, R.D. and Linda Peters Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, to serve as the Interim Research Director. In addition to helping promote visual science research across campus, Dr. Lipinski will additionally be leading recruitment of vision science faculty as part of a planned departmental expansion.
	November 03, 2022 Publication – OGTL research published in Communications Biology In an article published today, Kristina Chern, a sixth-year interdisciplinary program (IDP) graduate student, demonstrated a proof-of-concept that rAAV-mediated de novo biosynthesis of prostaglandin F2alpha within cells of the anterior chamber leads to permanent, dose-dependent decrease in intraocular pressure in brown Norway rat model. Kristina's paper lays the foundations for a potential single-dose gene therapy treatment for open angle glaucoma, one of the most common blinding diseases in patients over 40-years. Read the full article here.
	August 3, 2022 Welcome - Samiah Ziadeh joins OGTL as a research Technologist Samiah Ziadeh will join MCW as a research technologist working jointly with the labs of Dr Lipinski (Department of Ophthalmology) and Dr Greenberg (Department of Biomedical Engineering). Samiah will be responsible for assisting the everyday running of the lab, in addition to conducting her own research project focused the development of a zebrafish model of AMD.
	August 1, 2022 Congratulations - Gavin Marcoe accepted to Master's program Gavin Marcoe, a research technologist within the OGTL, leaves today to take up a place on the Master’s in Bacteriology Program at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Everyone in the lab wishes Gavin the best of luck!
	July 28, 2022 Publication - OGTL research published in Gene Therapy In an article published today, Dr. Hanmeng Zhang, formerly a graduate student in the Lipinski Laboratory, described a gene augmentation strategy to treat the ocular manifestations of a hyper-rare disease, Farber Lipogranulomatosis. Dr. Zhang demonstrated that rAAV-mediated over-expression of acid ceramidase prevented retinopathy in a knock-in mouse model of Farber disease, leading to a reduction in retinal thickening around the optic nerve head associated with lower levels of sphingolipids and ceramides accumulation. This work was performed in collaboration with Dr. Jeffery Medin, MACC Fund Professor, Department of Pediatrics, at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Read the full article here.
	June 9, 2022 Congratulations – Kristina Chern receives award at American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) annual meeting Kristina, a fifth year IDP student in the Ocular Gene therapy Laboratory (OGTL) has been awarded the an ‘Outstanding Poster Presentation Award’ for her abstract entitled ‘Evaluation of rAAV serotypes in the Murine Anterior Chamber for the Treatment of Glaucoma’, which was presented at the 25th ASGCT annual meeting held in Washington, D.C.
	May 27, 2022 Grant - National Eye Institute Dr. Daniel Lipinski, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin, in collaboration Dr. Andras Komaromy, Professor of Comparative Ophthalmology at Michigan State University, have been awarded a Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Eye Institute entitled ‘Development of an IOP-lowering gene therapy treatment for glaucoma’. This four-year, approximately $2.6M award focuses on assessing the safety and efficacy of a gene therapy treatment aimed at permanently lowering intra-ocular pressure, a major risk factor for vision loss, in patients with open angle glaucoma.
	March 2, 2022 Congratulations– Kristina Chern receives travel grant for the upcoming Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting Kristina, a fifth year IDP student in the Ocular Gene Therapy Laboratory (OGTL) has been awarded the ‘Knights Templar Eye Foundation Travel Grant’ to attend the ARVO annual meeting, held May 1-4, 2022 in Denver, CO. Kristina will present her poster entitled ‘Safety and Efficacy of recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) mediated transduction in the anterior chamber of the African Green Monkey (Chlorocebus sabaeus) in May 1 from 12:15 – 2:15 p.m. (Posterboard A0032). Feel free to stop by and congratulate Kristina and look over at her fantastic work!
	February 21, 2022 Congratulations – Alex Tate passes his qualifying exam Alex Tate, a second-year graduate in the Neuroscience Doctoral Program (NDP), successfully passed his qualifying exam in front of a committee consisting of Drs. Daniel M. Lipinski, DPhil, Joseph Carroll, PhD, Alison Ebert, PhD and Christopher Pawela, PhD. Alex will continue his work on the development of laser speckle contrast imaging technologies to assess retinal vascular function in neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s.