Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program
Johns Hopkins University
336 Garland Hall
3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
The retina is composed of over 80 cell types organized in three distinct cellular layers. This study describes one type of retinal ganglion cell known as a melanopsin cell, a subset of which appear to innervate both brain nuclei and the retina itself, therefore providing the first anatomical example of bidirectional retinal processing by ganglion cells. This project was a collaborative effort between the Dacey and Hattar labs, which study primate and murine retina, respectively; I worked in both labs, on both species. A poster on this work was presented at two international conferences.