Vision is energy-intensive. Mutations that impair a person's ability to generate energy disproportionately affect vision. Our hypothesis is that common diseases that cause blindness may also be related to a failure of the eye to generate sufficient energy to serve its needs. This hypothesis is relevant to age-related macular degeneration and may also explain visual dysfunction in retinitis pigmentosa, glaucoma, diabetic retinopthy, and more.
What do we study? Our goal is to understand metabolism in visual tissues, primarily the retina and retinal pigment epithelium. We want to know which cells in the eye carry our particular metabolic processes, what causes a cell to be metabolically 'wired' as it is, and the extent to which degenerative diseases affecting vision are linked to metabolic impairments.