The Cavalier Daily
Serving the University Community Since 1890

Student research targets causes of blindness

Harrison grant allows undergrads to travel, conduct experiments

Fourth-year Engineering students Tyler Brobst, Alyssa Long, and Jessica Ungerleider, are working with microvascular remodeling in retina to study and ultimately learn to prevent one of the leading causes of blindness.

Brobst, Long and Ungerleider are researching the role of a type of cell in the retina called a pericyte, which wraps around capillaries. Microvascular remodeling is a structural change that occurs in small blood vessels, and the process is disrupted when there are a lack in pericyte cells — ultimately leading to a decline in vascular stability.

The students began work on the project in fall of their third year and have continued the project for their Capstone in Biomedical Engineering.

“Our overall goal is to develop a new stem cell based therapy that could improve treatment options for patients with diabetic retinotherapy,” Brobst said in an email.

Dr. Shayn Peirce-Cottler, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and mentor to the students, said that understanding diabetic retinopathy — a damage to the retina which can lead to blindness in people with diabetes — is the first step to helping those suffering from the disorder.

“If we can understand it, we can lead to better ways to prevent it or stop the progress of the disease,” Peirce-Cottler said.

“The problem is that in diabetes, pericytes get ‘sick’ and die, so to speak,” Long said in an email. “That leaves the capillaries without their normal covering of pericytes, and causes them to leak and become unstable. Unstable capillaries eventually leads to tearing of the retina, and that is what ultimately leads to blindness in diabetic retinopathy.”

Diabetic retinopathy affects more than 100 million people globally, making it the leading cause of blindness in working age adults, according to the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

“If we can understand how and why the pericytes become ‘sick’, we may be able to engineer ways to keep them happy and healthy — even in diabetes,” Long said.

The project was funded by the Harrison Research Grant, a grant which is awarded by the University’s center for Undergraduate Excellence. The students applied in December 2011 and received $3000 in funding in February 2012.

Additional funding came from Dr. Peirce-Cottler’s NIH grant, Ungerleider said.

“We used half of our funding for laboratory expenses and the other half for travel expenses, which we used to present our research at an oral symposium at the October 2012 meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society in Atlanta, GA,” Brobst said.

Brobst said the team’s patience was key for the duration of the project.

“Anyone going into research needs to set aside their desire for instant gratification,” Brobst said. “Getting anywhere with research takes significant time and effort.”

Comments

Latest Podcast

The University’s Associate Vice Provost for Enrollment and Undergraduate Admission, Greg Roberts, provides listeners with an insight into how the University conducts admissions and the legal subtleties regarding the possible end to the consideration of legacy status.



https://open.spotify.com/episode/02ZWcF1RlqBj7CXLfA49xt