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Forschungsschwerpunkte

The human retina is a highly complex organ that represents an important part of the central nervous system. It is often called the window to the brain, and dysfunction of retinal neurons is a major cause of incurable blindness worldwide. Despite the advances in understanding retinal development and the preclinical translation of potential gene or cell replacement therapies, to date, no treatments or definitive cure are available to reverse the degenerative processes of retinal dystrophies or to restore vision with blindness. The focus of our laboratory is to establish a novel retinal implant fabricated from organic materials and using stem cell derived 3D retinal organoids as human models to understand retinal dystrophies, for the final goal to restore vision with blindness.

Aktuelle Projekte

Artificial Retina: Stimulation of Retinal Cells
Blind patients usually are not able to see because the cells in the retina, the tissue responsible for light perception in the eye, are lost or degenerated. In order to restore vision to blind patients, we aim in our research laboratory to invent a new prosthethic implant fabricated from organic materials. The advandage of this implant is that it can be be naturally stimulated by light, so no camera or wiring is needed. In addition, since it is fabricated from organic materials, there is no fear of implant rejection or infections.
Also, to be able to efficiently test the implant on humans cells, we are using human retinal organoid models. Organoids are three dimensional structures formed by cells of a specific tissue, and are coming from the patient cells after reprogramming them to become the so called "induced pluripotent stem cells" or iPSCs. We use retinal organoids as human models to understand the blindness diseases and also as tools to test our organic prosthethic.

Auszug aus dem wissenschaftlichen Werdegang

• July 2020 – Present: Research Group Leader at Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Linz, University Clinic for Ophthalmology and Optometry, Linz, Austria.
  “Artificial Retina: Organic retinal prosthesis and human organoid retinal models”
• 2015 – 2019: Postdoctoral researcher at University of Innsbruck, Depart. of Genomics, stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, Innsbruck, Austria.
  “Age-induced organoid models for deciphering risk factors of Parkinson’s disease”
  “Human induced pluripotent and neural stem cell reprogramming and differentiation toward dopaminergic neurons for the treatment of Parkinson disease”
  “Exploring the therapeutic potential of induced neural stem cells for Parkinson’s disease treatment employing a syngenic monkey model”
  “Role of Fahd1 in mouse embryonic fibroblasts reprogramming.”
• 2015: Postdoctoral researcher at Catholic University of Louvain, Institute of life Sciences, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
  “Cellular and Molecular analysis of the role of Hoxa5 in the adult brain”
• 2012 – 2014: Postdoctoral researcher at Medical University of Innsbruck. Experimental Psychiatry Unit, Innsbruck, Austria.
  “Neurobiology of Social interaction as an alternative to drugs of abuse”
• 2008 – 2012: PhD at Medical University of Innsbruck. Institute for Neuroscience, Innsbruck, Austria
  “Expression of early developmental markers predicts the efficiency of dopaminergic differentiation from embryonic stem cells”
  “Pharmacological modulation of the hedgehog pathway differentially affects dorsal/ventral patterning in mouse and human embryonic stem cell models of telencephalic development”
  “Cell Fate Analysis of Ventral Mesencephalic Derived Grafts in the 6-OHDA Rat Model of Parkinson’s Disease”