Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant
If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more
Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome
Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more
Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA
At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read moreCongratulations to Ying Li, MD, PhD, 3rd place winner of the Best Image contest held as part of the Emory Postdoctoral Research Symposium, which takes place next week (Thursday, May 19). Li is in Eldon Geisert’s lab, and provided Lab Land this description:
“Like a benevolent overseer of the cosmos, the epicenter of the optic nerve appears to extend a axon reassuringly to the small, seemingly lowly single ganglion cell, reminding us that every cell matters.”
Was your mother right when she told you not to read in dim light? Is there a correlation between your love of reading as a child and the fact that you now need glasses for distant objects?
These questions and more are being addressed by researchers at Emory and the Veterans Administration.
In a lab at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center near Emory, researcher Machelle Pardue, PhD, who has an appointment at Emory Eye Center, studies why some eyes seem to change over time, growing larger and longer, thereby making that eye what we call “nearsighted.†This dependence on glasses or contact lenses to see distant objects seems to be a growing phenomenon. Scientists and ophthalmologists call this nearsightedness myopia, and whether it’s environmental or genetic—or a likely combination of both—is fascinating to Pardue and her research colleagues.
Michelle Pardue, PhD
The unique collaborative nature of Pardue’s work draws on the talents of many specialists—clinical, engineering, molecular, and imaging. Her ongoing work and the work of others who serve both at the VA and Emory will no doubt lead to important findings and from that, possible clinical treatments.
For more information about Pardue’s work, read the feature article  “Closing in on myopia—and more†in Emory Eye magazine, summer 2010, page 8.
The idea of your child having an eye removed is shocking, an extremely difficult thing for a parent to cope with, says Baker Hubbard, MD, Thomas M. Aaberg Professor of Ophthalmology, and a pediatric ocular oncologist. Actually, says Hubbard, most children who lose an eye adapt very well and enjoy essentially normal lives.
Baker Hubbard, MD
Retinoblastoma is cancer that forms in the tissues of the retina (the light-sensitive layers of nerve tissue at the back of the eye). Retinoblastoma usually occurs in children younger than age five. It may be hereditary or nonhereditary (sporadic), and is caused by mutations in genes.
To six-year-old Emilia McKibbin, having a prosthetic eye is no big deal. She knows to protect it—wearing her glasses for school and playtime, donning a scuba mask at the beach—but it doesn’t limit her choices.
Following her interests, Emilia has earned a gold belt in karate. She’s learning gymnastics. She swims. She loves to romp with Daisy, her black cocker spaniel. And while most people don’t even notice that one of this little girl’s shining dark-brown eyes is different from the other, Emilia shares her story with a few. “I tell my teachers and my friends that I have a special eye,†she says.