Joseph Carroll, PhD

Medical College of Wisconsin - Visionary

Project Title: "Advanced Retinal Imaging and Improving the Success of Gene Therapy"

 

The objective of Dr. Carroll’s project is to characterize how disruptions in the cone cells of the retina affect visual function.  In order for gene therapy to work (whether it be for achromatopsia, LCA, colorblindness, RP or other retinal disease), the cell type that you are trying to functionally rescue in a specific retinal disease must be structurally present.  In order for us to evaluate eligibility for, or responses to a given therapy, we must be able to measure the function, or altered function of the targeted cells. Using achromatopsia as a model, we are developing a clearer understanding of the photoreceptor mosaic in normal and diseased retinas and across populations sharing common genetic mutations affecting the visual system.  Such an understanding will allow clinicians to predict who might be the best candidates for a given therapy and simultaneously, which regions within the retinas of these candidates might be most receptive to therapy.