The Medical College of Wisconsin has received a five-year, $1,893,750 grant from the National Eye Institute to study the structure of cone photoreceptors, cells in the retina of the eye that function best in bright light, and how they function in the healthy and diseased retina. The study may reveal valuable “pre-clinical” diagnostic tools that could prove useful in detecting and diagnosing retinal diseases like glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration much earlier than is currently possible.
Joseph J. Carroll, Ph.D., assistant professor of ophthalmology, is principal investigator for the grant.
Dr. Carroll will examine how disruptions in the structure of the arrangement of cones in the retina contribute to visual dysfunction. Examination of the genetic factors that may cause alterations in the cone mosaic and assessment of how the cones function after being damaged could reveal how these changes affect vision disorders.
For more information, see http://www.mcw.edu/ophthalmology/faculty/FacultyProfiles1/JosephCarrollPhD.htm
