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Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

Miesfeld Laboratory

The Miesfeld Laboratory is interested in understanding the gene regulatory networks associated with development and disease of the neural retina, with a focus on retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the pathogenic target in glaucoma. Through comparisons of natural retinal development with genetic perturbations of genes and cis regulatory elements of interest, we elucidate the mechanisms leading to congenital and adult-onset retinal diseases. The laboratory combines a variety of techniques (biochemistry, histochemistry, molecular biology, microscopy, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, etc.) and model systems (mouse, zebrafish, cell and tissue culture) to explore the mechanisms responsible for retinal homeostasis.
Miesfeld Lab_Intro

Research Areas

Retinal Ganglion Cell Genesis and Survival
Retinal ganglion cells are the first-born retinal neurons, important for driving retinal progenitor cell proliferation and their axons form the optic nerve, which serves as a path for migrating astrocytes that promote development of the definitive retinal vasculature. Disrupted RGC genesis is a major cause of congenital blindness. RGCs are essential for vision because they transmit all visual stimuli from the eye to the brain and are the pathogenic target in glaucoma. It is important for vision scientists to understand the mechanisms controlling RGC birth and survival, in order to generate RGCs in vitro for cell transplantation (restoring vision) – and RGC maintenance, in order to prevent degeneration (protecting vision). For this, our lab is investigating the transcription factors, co-activators, co-repressors, and chromatin modifiers contributing to the neural retina/RGC gene regulatory network.

 Miesfeld Lab_embryo_retinal ganglion cell
 Embryonic day 14.5 mouse cryosection labeling retinal progenitor cells, Atoh7+ cells, and RGC axons.
 Miesfeld Lab_Retinal Ganglion cell Pax6enh
 Identification of Pax6+ and Atoh7+ cells in the developing zebrafish retina.

Glaucoma
The Glaucomas are a complex group of ocular neurodegenerative