Resources

NEI Training Grant (now in its 21^st year)

NIH support is available for the training of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in Vision Research, in laboratories utilizing a wide array of approaches, including genetics of ocular disease, live cell imaging, physiology and behavior, computational modeling, functional neuroimaging, optics, biomedical engineering, and psychophysics. The primary goal of this training program is to provide Trainees a rigorous foundation in both the fundamental scientific basis and the clinical relevance of vision science, in order to broaden the perspective and skills of future vision scientists.

Vision Science Training Grant: From Cornea to Cortex

With support of the NIH National Eye Institute (T32) and campus, this training program funds doctoral students working in vision-related laboratories with two core objectives:

1. To provide specialized, interdisciplinary training in the basic science of vision, which requires knowledge of the physics of light and optics, biochemistry and materials science, tissue engineering, circuits, synapses, neuroscience and cognition. Conferring this interdisciplinary knowledge base to the next generation of scientists advances both NIH and University agendas to broaden the research perspective and skills of the future biomedical workforce.
2. To support high-level research of vision faculty by creating a framework for cross-disciplinary interactions and collaborations between laboratories and sub-specialities. The 32 vision science faculty (24 preceptors, 8 affiliates) are dispersed across 8 departments and 5 schools/colleges, but cluster naturally into broad-ranging subject areas that yield collaborations, shared resources, and joint lab meetings fostered by unifying training program activities.

Nominations of students for training program appointments are solicited from the faculty each spring.

For more information, contact:

Marie Burns, PhD
☎ 530-752-1466 | ✉ meburns@ucdavis.edu

NEI Core Grant (now in it's 26^th year)

Vision research at UC Davis is supported in part by an NEI vision core grant that provides equipment and service modules that are too large or otherwise impractical for ownership or maintenance by individual laboratories. The Core Grant supports four common-use facilities for vision researchers:

1. Structure-Function Module, (Director: Tom Glaser, tmglaser@ucdavis.edu)
   This core is staffed and equipped to process tissue — from live animal to finished imaging — at both the light microscopy and electron microscopy levels. It offers cryostats, microtomes, some automated tissue processing for paraffin embedment, embedding ovens, freeze substitution equipment, critical point dryer, and the chemical necessary for multiple types of embedding. The Core also provides access to some more specialized imaging equipment, including the Leica Thunder, Andor Dragonfly, as well Licor and Azure systems gel imagers/analyzers.  The Core can conduct all services for the users, or, alternatively, train laboratory personnel, including postdoctoral scholars and graduate students, to use all Core equipment in cases where investigators wish to conduct their own processing, or add to the tool set of their trainees. In addition, we have a rodent anesthesia/ocular surgery workstation for intraocular injection. Also present are a two-headed microscope and dissecting microscope rigged with projection screens and cameras to facilitate training in dissections.
2. Software Engineering, (Director: W. Martin Usrey, wmusrey@ucdavis.edu)
3. Large Animal Ocular Imaging: (Director: Sara Thomasy, smthomasy@ucdavis.edu)
   The Large Animal Core (LAC) has been part of the Vision Research Core Grant since 2019 and is a critical element of our program. Large animals are key for bridging the fundamental knowledge acquired from rodents to human application. Noninvasive ocular imaging of large animals has become increasingly important in ocular research and ocular drug/device development programs. The LAC extends many of the services of the murine-focused small animal imaging services through the Eye pod to large animal models, including nonhuman primates (NHPs), and brings novel services to vision science faculty. Importantly, the LAC provides a forum for the communication of resources as well as provide expert assistance to help investigators understand the technologies and their capabilities, develop appropriate study designs, perform procedures and/or collect data. Results are provided to participating VRCG Investigators in detailed reports, where they are evaluated and discussed, leading to the production of publication-quality figures and tables or refinements of experiments to acquire such results.
   The facilities of the LAC: (1) it provides a broad, highly innovative set of services for non-invasive characterization of ocular structure and function of large animals; (2) it enables and supports novel experimental protocols in which individual animals with disease, developmental or experimental perturbations to ocular function can be repeatedly imaged over time; (3) it fosters new connections between basic science and clinical researchers by providing comprehensive services in support of large animal vision science investigations; (4) it provides vision science researchers access to inducible ocular surgical models and the full array of drug delivery routes as well as experienced professional and technical staff to conduct anesthesia and ocular surgery in large animals; and (5) it fosters novel research efforts, including new collaborations among NEI PIs and between NEI PIs and other investigators both within and outside UC Davis, attracting accomplished scientists to vision research and fostering new PIs from within the vision science community. The imaging technologies that available at the LAC are intrinsically noninvasive, enabling repeated assessment of the same ocular structures of individual animals at multiple time points, to efficiently examine the temporal course of induced and spontaneous ocular disease, experimental treatment or a surgical manipulation.
4. Molecular Construct and Packaging, (Director: Marie Burns, meburns@ucdavis.edu)
   Vision researchers at UC Davis, like many across the country, have ever-growing needs to design and utilize molecular tools for both cellular and molecular mechanistic questions as well as neuroscience systems research, two areas in which UC Davis has been a strong leader. The molecular cloning and packaging of constructs into viral vectors is increasingly the method of choice for delivery of target genes or gene editing machinery into cells, but requires specialized expertise and equipment that is beyond the scope of most individual laboratories. The Molecular Construct and Packaging Core (MCPC) provides (1) expression construct design, cloning and production; (2) packaging of Lentivirus and AAV vectors for vision science projects across campus. With over 20 years of cloning and viral vector packaging, Core Manager Dr. Huaiyang Chen provides high quality constructs and vectors with rapid turnaround. Please contact core director Dr. Marie Burns for further information.
5. Small Animal Ocular Imaging, (Director: Robert Zawadzki, rjzawadzki@ucdavis.edu)
   The "EyePod" is a facility for imaging the retina, cornea and other components of living eyes of small animals, located in the 4th floor of Tupper Hall. The EyePod comprises several distinct imaging capabilities, including Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), fundus camera (reflectance and fluorescence), Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy (SLO) with excitation throughout the visible and infrared spectrum. The current resolution of these techniques is in the range of several microns. In addition, Adaptive Optics technology has been added to the OCT imaging and is expected to be in operation with the SLO in Fall, 2013. AO-OCT and AO-SLO enable subcellular level imaging of live mouse retinas, providing the possibility of interrogating many cell types and structures and vasculature with optogenetic methods, fluorescent reporters and light-scattering.

For further information, contact:

The "eyePod" RISE funded retinal imaging facility

RISE EyePod: small animal ocular imaging facility

The "EyePod" is newly created facility for imaging the retina, cornea and other components of living eyes of small animals, built with funds provided by the UC Davis's Research in Science and Engineering (RISE) program, and located in the 4th floor of Tupper Hall. The EyePod comprises several distinct imaging capabilities, including Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), fundus camera (reflectance and fluorescence), Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy (SLO) with excitation throughout the visible and infrared spectrum. The current resolution of these techniques is in the range of several microns. In addition, Adaptive Optics technology has been added to the OCT imaging and is expected to be in operation with the SLO in Fall, 2013. AO-OCT and AO-SLO enable subcellular level imaging of live mouse retinas, providing the possibility of interrogating many cell types and structures and vasculature with optogenetic methods, fluorescent reporters and light-scattering. The EyePod has become a core module of the Vision Center.