Matthew Veldman
Medical College of Wisconsin, WI·Neuroscience
Damage to the optic nerve, the cable that carries signals from the eye to the brain, causes permanent blindness in conditions like glaucoma. This happens because the central nervous system of mammals cannot regrow injured nerve fibers, called axons.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Biology
Genetics
- Topics
optic nerve regeneration
axon regeneration
retinal ganglion cells
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Determine when srebf2, a master regulator of cholesterol production, is needed in zebrafish retinal ganglion cells for optic nerve regeneration, using srebf2 activity reporter lines.
- Test whether activating srebf2 speeds optic nerve regrowth, and profile gene changes in gain- and loss-of-function retinal ganglion cells by laser capture microdissection RNA-seq.
- Determine whether internal cholesterol synthesis or uptake of external cholesterol drives regeneration, using drugs and gene knockdown of mevalonate pathway branches and lipoprotein receptors.
- Test whether Srebf2 expression protects retinal ganglion cells and stimulates axon regrowth in a mouse optic nerve injury model, comparing gene changes with zebrafish.
More about the research
Zebrafish, however, regrow their optic nerve and recover vision. Learning how they do it could suggest ways to promote regeneration in people.
Why it matters
Optic neuropathies such as glaucoma are a common cause of blindness because mammalian optic nerves do not regenerate. Identifying how the srebf2 cholesterol pathway supports successful regrowth in zebrafish, and testing it in injured mice, could point to new therapeutic targets that protect retinal neurons and restore vision.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Karsten Gronert
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Neuroscience
Define which retinal cells make and respond to prostaglandin D2 (PGD2), a fat-derived signaling molecule, in healthy retina and how raised eye pressure (ocular hypertension) shuts this pathway down.
Wonkyu Ju
University of California-San Diego, CA·Neuroscience
Define how AIBP, a cholesterol-removing protein, controls activation of the inflammatory receptor TLR4 within lipid rafts of Müller glia, the retina's main support cells.
Michael Kapiloff
Stanford University, CA·Physiology
Define how phospholamban bound to AKAP6β at the outer nuclear membrane regulates calcium efflux from a nanometer-scale perinuclear compartment and myocyte growth, using live-cell imaging and biochemical assays in rat ventricular myocytes and human stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes.
The school
Medical College of Wisconsin: 17 labs on PI Pages, $360M a year on research, 44 research doctorates a year.
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