Core Facilities for Vision Research

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Project Summary/Abstract Columbia University has a large and vibrant vision research community supported by the National Eye Institute, with 25 qualifying R01 grants and 48 vision scientists in all. Vision research at Columbia ranges across a gamut of topics, from genetic studies of retinal and visual brain development in Drosophila and mice to studies of human retinal disease. Computational, neurophysiological, light microscopic, genetic, biochemical, and clinical techniques focus on a range of problems including the development of the eye and the visual brain, the mechanisms of ocular angiogenesis, the systems neuroscience of visual and oculomotor behavior, and the pathophysiology, genetics, and treatment of retinal diseases such as macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, myopia, and glaucoma. To support this vision research, we are applying to renew our National Eye Institute grant P30 EY019007, which will continue to support a set of Core Facilities for Vision Research and enable services that could not be provided by individual research grants. The grant supports three research cores: i) an Instrumentation Fabrication and Design Core that designs and builds custom equipment; ii) a Computer Core that performs support and maintenance for the hundreds of computers, including real-time laboratory computer-based interface used by the vision research community, handles research-specific database design, integrated data storage, management and analysis with the new Genomics Analysis Suite; and iii) an Imaging, Histology and Functional Diagnostics Core, which provides histological, in vivo, fluorescent microscopy, OCT, and ERG services. The grant not only supports currently funded investigators with NEI R01s, but also aids the work of vision scientists supported by other NEI funding mechanisms, other NIH institutes, and, importantly, young investigators gathering data in order to submit their first NEI grants. This grant facilitates collaboration among members of the Columbia vision research community, and encourages scientists not currently engaged in vision research to use their expertise in problems related to vision.