Vision and Retina





  Michael A. Dyer, Ph.D.

MICHAEL A. DYER, Ph.D.

Associate Member
Department of Developmental Neurobiology
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Affiliated Assistant Professor
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology
The University of Tennessee College of Medicine

Address

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
DTRC Room D2025C
332 N. Lauderdale
Memphis, TN 38105
Tel: (901) 495-2257; Fax: (901) 495-3143;

Education

Ph.D. Institution: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Research Interests

My laboratory studies the regulation of growth during neural development and disease. Cell division must be carefully regulated during brain development to ensure that the resulting tissue is the appropriate size and contains the correct proportion of each specialized cell type. If the precise balance of cell types were altered in the brain, then the different neurons and glia would not be able to work together to process information. Many of the genes that control growth during development are also involved in regulating cell division following brain injury or in certain degenerative processes. In addition, these genes are often mutated in cancer cells. Therefore, by studying the regulation of growth during development, we can learn about the cause and progression of a variety of diseases in the central nervous system. This may ultimately lead to the design of better treatments for neural injury, degeneration and cancer. 

The retina is a specialized region of the central nervous system that receives and processes visual information. Like the rest of the central nervous system, injury, degeneration and cancer involve changes in the growth properties of retinal cells. We use a wide range of experimental approaches to study how cell division is controlled during retinal development and disease. Methods currently being used in the lab include genetically engineered mice, replication incompetent retroviral vectors suitable for in vivo studies, explant culture systems, microarray hybridization, and to extended our observations to human retinopathies we use normal and diseased human tissue and monkey samples. Experimental approaches that are under development include retinal physiology (ERG), electron microscopy, cell sorting, in vivo mouse models of retinoblastoma, and computational modeling of proliferation during development.

Links

St Jude Faculty - Michael A. Dyer

Recent Publications

  • Laurie N, Mohan A, McEvoy J, Reed D, Zhang J, Schweers B, Ajioka I, Valentine V, Johnson D, Ellison D, Dyer MA. Changes in retinoblastoma cell adhesion associated with optic nerve invasion. Mol Cell Biol. 2009 Dec;29(23):6268-82. Epub 2009 Sep 28. PMID: 19786571
  • Dyer MA, Abramson DH. Mutations and cancer: one or two historical perspectives? Lancet Oncol. 2009 Aug;10(8):834. Review. No abstract available. PMID: 19647204
  • Dyer MA. In their own words: interviews with Cell Cycle. The first knockout mouse model of retinoblastoma. Cell Cycle. 2009 Jul 15;8(14):2145. Epub 2009 Jul 15. No abstract available. PMID: 19574732
  • Dyer MA, Martins R, da Silva Filho M, Muniz JA, Silveira LC, Cepko CL, Finlay BL. Developmental sources of conservation and variation in the evolution of the primate eye. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Jun 2;106(22):8963-8. Epub 2009 May 18. PMID: 19451636
  • Cicero SA, Johnson D, Reyntjens S, Frase S, Connell S, Chow LM, Baker SJ, Sorrentino BP, Dyer MA. Cells previously identified as retinal stem cells are pigmented ciliary epithelial cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Apr 21;106(16):6685-90. Epub 2009 Apr 3. PMID: 19346468
  • Shih CS, Laurie N, Holzmacher J, Spence Y, Nathwani AC, Davidoff AM, Dyer MA. AAV-mediated local delivery of interferon-beta for the treatment of retinoblastoma in preclinical models. Neuromolecular Med. 2009;11(1):43-52. Epub 2009 Mar 22. PMID: 19306089
view complete list of references (pubmed link)