Dr. Robert Cooper, Team Awarded Patent

Dr. Robert Cooper, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, and collaborators have been awarded a U.S. patent for detailing methods and systems for cellular-scale assessment of photoreceptor function. The highly sensitive approach detailed in the patent is crucial to the advancement of current therapeutic approaches for visual health, including optogenetic, gene, molecular and stem cell therapies.

The patent, titled, “Non-invasive Assessment of Human Cone Photoreceptor Function,” is one of only a few methodologies that allow for evaluation of human cone photoreceptor function at the level of the individual cell and is unique in that it operates by measuring changes in photoreceptor reflectance. This patent was completed in collaboration with Drs. Jessica I. W. Morgan and David H. Brainard of the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. William S. Tuten of UC Berkeley, with whom Dr. Cooper worked during his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Robert Cooper is director of the Ocular and Computer Vision Laboratory. In addition to maintaining close relationships with the team at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Cooper also works closely with Dr. Joseph Carroll and the Advanced Ocular Imaging Program in the Department of Ophthalmology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and co-directs the Marquette Visualization Laboratory with Dr. Adam Greenberg.