TONIA S. REX, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Ophthalmology

The University of Tennessee College of Medicine

Address

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Hamilton Eye Institute

930 Madison Avenue, Suite 750

Memphis, TN 38163

Tel: (901) 448-2094; Fax: (901) 448-5028;

Education

Ph.D. Institution: Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Barbara

Postdoctoral: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Research Interests

One research goal is to study the ability of erythropoietin to protect the retina from induced and inherited retinal degenerations. A second project is the study of retinal development and differentiation through gene delivery. Specifically, the role of NR2E3 will be studied and gene therapy developed for enhanced S-cone syndrome, a retinal degeneration due to a lack of NR2E3.

Recent Publications

• Allocca M, Doria M, Petrillo M, Colella P, Garcia-Hoyos M, Gibbs D, Kim SR, Maguire A, Rex TS, Di Vicino U, Cutillo L, Sparrow JR, Williams DS, Bennett J, Auricchio A. Serotype-dependent packaging of large genes in adeno-associated viral vectors results in effective gene delivery in mice. J Clin Invest. 2008 May;118(5):1955-64. PMID: 18414684
• Bennicelli J, Wright JF, Komaromy A, Jacobs JB, Hauck B, Zelenaia O, Mingozzi F, Hui D, Chung D, Rex TS, Wei Z, Qu G, Zhou S, Zeiss C, Arruda VR, Acland GM, Dell'Osso LF, High KA, Maguire AM, Bennett J. Reversal of blindness in animal models of leber congenital amaurosis using optimized AAV2-mediated gene transfer. Mol Ther. 2008 Mar;16(3):458-65. Epub 2008 Jan 22. PMID: 18209734
• Rex TS. Virus-mediated gene delivery to neuronal progenitors. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2008;613:147-53. Review. No abstract available. PMID: 18188939
• Rex TS. Rescue of sight by gene therapy - closer than it may appear. Ophthalmic Genet. 2007 Sep;28(3):127-33. Review. PMID: 17896310
• Shindler KS, Ventura E, Rex TS, Elliott P, Rostami A. SIRT1 activation confers neuroprotection in experimental optic neuritis. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2007 Aug;48(8):3602-9. PMID: 17652729
• Rex TS, Peet JA, Surace EM, Calvert PD, Nikonov SS, Lyubarsky AL, Bendo E, Hughes T, Pugh EN Jr, Bennett J. The distribution, concentration, and toxicity of enhanced green fluorescent protein in retinal cells after genomic or somatic (virus-mediated) gene transfer. Mol Vis. 2005 Dec 30;11:1236-45. PMID: 16402024

view complete list of references (pubmed link)