Science Cafe.
When: 7:00 PM, Tuesday, 12 January 2016
Where: Orca Books (509 East 4th Avenue, Olympia, Phone 360.352.0123)
Our May Topic Is How the world became colored and the implications for curing color blindness
In collaboration with his wife, Maureen, Jay Neitz has discovered how genetic mutations play a part in many of the most common vision problems that affect modern humans. They have also used colorblindness in primates as a model for exploring the potential of curing vision problems in humans with gene therapy. They have successfully added a third type of cone pigment to dichromatic retinas using viral vector mediated gene transfer. The cure of colorblindness in adult monkeys may recapitulate the evolution of color vision in primates. The demonstration that new visual capacities can arise from a single addition of a therapeutic gene in adults provides a positive outlook for the potential of genes to be used as medicines to cure adult vision disorders.
About the Speaker:
Jay Neitz received his PhD in Biopsychology from the University of California in Santa Barbara in 1986. His graduate work was conducted in the laboratory of Gerald Jacobs, PhD, and it focused on understanding how the human visual system works using color vision as a model. After graduating in 1986, he continued post-doctoral training in the Jacobs lab and began collaborating with his wife, Maureen Neitz, PhD who was also in the Jacobs lab. In 1991, Jay Neitz took his first faculty position at the Medical College of Wisconsin. After nearly 18 years in Wisconsin, Maureen and Jay Neitz moved their labs to the University of Washington in January of 2009. He is currently the Bishop Professor in Ophthalmology.
Next Month: How to Design a Study Better