Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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BrightFocus Foundation @brightfocus.bsky.social · 7d

Team BrightFocus Foundation is on the ground in Atlanta for our #GlaucomaFastTrack program, the official pre-symposium workshop to the ISER/BrightFocus Glaucoma Symposium.

Glaucoma Fast Track brings together top researchers from across the globe to accelerate vision research. 💪 🔬

Dr. Diane Bovenkamp at BrightFocus Foundation's Glaucoma Fast Track workshop in Atlanta, GA. Glaucoma Fast Track is the official pre-symposium workshop to the International Society for Eye Research (ISER)/BrightFocus Glaucoma Symposium: Concepts and Breakthroughs in Glaucoma.

Researchers at BrightFocus Foundation's Glaucoma Fast Track workshop in Atlanta, GA. Glaucoma Fast Track is the official pre-symposium workshop to the International Society for Eye Research (ISER)/BrightFocus Glaucoma Symposium: Concepts and Breakthroughs in Glaucoma.

Speakers Michael Elliott, PhD, Robert W. Nickells, PhD, Rebecca Sappington, PhD, and Colleen McDowell at BrightFocus Foundation's Glaucoma Fast Track workshop. Glaucoma Fast Track is the official pre-symposium workshop to the International Society for Eye Research (ISER)/BrightFocus Glaucoma Symposium: Concepts and Breakthroughs in Glaucoma.

Bri McWhorter speaking at BrightFocus Foundation's Glaucoma Fast Track workshop in Atlanta, GA.

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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 6d

YEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHH, Teresa!!!

UC Berkeley @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social · 6d

Teresa Puthussery, a UC Berkeley vision scientist whose insights into the retina could one day help those with vision loss regain their sight, has been named a 2025 MacArthur “genius” Fellow. news.berkeley.edu/2025/10/08/v...

Vision scientist Teresa Puthussery receives MacArthur ‘genius’ award - Berkeley News

Puthussery’s discoveries about the retina are paving the way for new treatments for eye disease and vision loss

news.berkeley.edu

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Daisy Shu @eyedaisyshu.bsky.social · 15d

I'm so excited to be hiring my first postdoc! If you love retinal biology and developing new therapeutics to cure blindness, please apply! Thank you to the @brightfocus.bsky.social for supporting my research and enabling me to grow my research team! external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/53...

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Dr Dorota SK @drdorotask.bsky.social · 21d

Our work is finally out! Learning from mechanism of #aging to presenting potential therapeutic strategy to slow down #age-related #vision loss! Very proud of my team including several undergrads and thankful for fantastic collaborations across the world! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Retinal polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation reverses aging-related vision decline in mice

Intravitreal delivery of an ELOVL2 product reduces age-related molecular changes in the retina and restores visual function.

www.science.org

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the Node @the-node.bsky.social · Sep 11

Congratulations to the winners of our image competition with the @mblscience.bsky.social Embryology course. The winner of the Editor’s choice is an image of a anole lizard eye, acquired by Arthur Boutillon @campaslab.bsky.social.
thenode.biologists.com/results-from...
#devbio 🔬🎉

Development cover: Embryonic eye of an anole lizard stained for nuclei (DAPI, blue) and F-actin (Phalloidin, orange), imaged by spinning disc confocal microscopy and processed using ImageJ. The image was acquired at the 2025 MBL Embryology course by Arthur Boutillon and was the Editor's choice from the Node image competition.

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Pascal Mamassian @mamassian.bsky.social · 21d

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue.

The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea.

From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt:
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

An array of 9 purple discs on a blue background. Figure from Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt.

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Webvision @webvision.bsky.social · 23d

Webvision Has A New Home!

www.webvision.pitt.edu/2025/09/22/w...

A colorful mosaic of abstract spots arranged in squares that are derived from retinal research data.

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Webvision @webvision.bsky.social · 26d

We are pleased to announce that Webvision has been fully migrated to our new home at the University of Pittsburgh. www.webvision.pitt.edu

All traffic should not automatically be redirected from the old URLs, but please update your links.

Heads up: @pittophthalmology.bsky.social

Webvision – The Organization of the Retina and Visual System

www.webvision.pitt.edu

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Webvision @webvision.bsky.social · 27d

Webvision is currently in migration.

If you are going to the old site, you will see a 404.

Check out our new home at webvision.pitt.edu

Webvision – The Organization of the Retina and Visual System

webvision.pitt.edu

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Dr. Sara Thomasy (she/hers) @sarathomasy.bsky.social · Sep 13

Super proud of Drs. Handel, Lim, and Ripolles-Garcia and Ms. Khan for representing COVSL at the Bay Area Vision Research Day! #visionscience

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Melina A. Agosto @agostolab.bsky.social · Sep 11

New paper! Kudos to first author Jaeeun Lee, who is a fantastic and hard working student. We showed that at photoreceptor presynapses, ELFN1 enrichment depends on postsynaptic mGluR6.
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

Confocal microscope images of the outer plexiform layer of WT or nob3 (mGluR6 null) mouse retina labeled with antibodies for ELFN1 (cyan) and PSD95 (magenta). In nob3 retina, ELFN1 is still localized to rod spherules, but synaptic enrichment is compromised.

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Justin Kumar @flyeyelab.bsky.social · 29d

Very proud of former Kumar lab PhD student, Alison Ordway, for receiving a K99 award from the National Eye Institute on her work describing photoreceptor patterning in Drosophila and mosquito compound eyes. Keep your eyes out for Alison when she goes out on the job market.

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Seth Blackshaw @sethblackshaw.bsky.social · Sep 12

Our latest manuscript is out, and this one tackles the problem of cellular aging in the retina, using comparative multiomic analysis of zebrafish, mouse, and humans. What led us to work on aging after studying development and regeneration? Explainer follows./1
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Comparative single-cell multiomic analysis reveals evolutionarily conserved and species-specific cellular mechanisms mediating natural retinal aging.

Biological age is a major risk factor in the development of common degenerative retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma. To systematically characterize molecular mechani...

www.biorxiv.org

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MwahahahahahadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · Sep 10

And how!

A pic of my tattooed leg. The tattoo is a drawing by Ramón y Cajal, who founded the field of Neuroscience. The drawing depicts the cell types of the human retina, a sort of cross section of a layered cake full of blobs, longer ones, and horizontal lines. There are some that look like "balloons", as the tattooer called them. On the right, there's a tall and spiky dark guy called a Müller glia.

Detail of the Müller glia. Imagine a medieval club, the kind you'll see at the Lord of the Rings movies: dark, long, spiky. It has some round shapes along and what look like electrical spikes at the bottom.

Detail of the "balloon" shapes. They are arranged on several layers: more 'ballooney' on the bottom, and longer and slender at the top

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Georgios Kafetzis @gkafetzis.bsky.social · Sep 12

👁️The retina — strikingly conserved across vertebrates, but an oddity among bilaterians!

So how did it evolve?

With @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social, we argue that retinal complexity may 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑦𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/n

a black and white dog is sitting on a couch with its tongue sticking out .

ALT: a black and white dog is sitting on a couch with its tongue sticking out .

media.tenor.com

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Pranav Seth @thebuddhabird93.bsky.social · Sep 12

#FluorescenceFriday
#Seahorse retina stained with #GNB3 (green) + #DAPI (cyan). GNB3 labels cone photoreceptors + ON #bipolarcells, tracing pathways from outer to inner retina. Amazing to see conserved visual #circuits in this non-traditional model

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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · Sep 12

Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) is not on Bsky yet, but they have a new website.

If you are interested in vision research, RPB is a source of funding for your work. I owe my career to RPB in many ways.

www.rpbusa.org

Home - Research to Prevent Blindness

At Research to Prevent Blindness, we enable the creation of treatments, preventives and cures for all eye diseases that threaten vision through scientific research.

www.rpbusa.org

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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · Sep 12

These are the kinds of stories that seem wild, but are firmly based in science and medicine.

They also show that science has a long way to go and we should be robustly funding science.

Artificial cornea research is underfunded, like most of biomedical science in America. It's time to lead.

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · Sep 12

TIL that for some people with irreparably damaged corneas, you can pull one of their teeth, drill a hole in it, install an artificial lens, sew it into their cheek (so tissue attaches), then pull it out and stick it in their damaged eye, and ... it works fine!?! www.nbcboston.com/news/health/...

Man, 34, is no longer blind after tooth is implanted in eye in 'crazy' surgery

Tooth-in-eye surgery sounds like science fiction, but it can help people with severely damaged corneas see again. A patient and his doctors describe what it's like.

www.nbcboston.com

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Sep 12

Help @thetransmitter.bsky.social and @neuromatch.bsky.social understand what early-career neuroscientists need. Take just a few minutes to fill out the survey: www.thetransmitter.org/early-career...

#neuroskyence

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Schallek Lab @schalleklab.bsky.social · Sep 12

#FluorescenceFriday
Strand and branch pericytes surround the vessels of the retina👁️🔬

color=depth
@flaumeye.bsky.social @urneuroscience.bsky.social @cvsuor.bsky.social @uofrbme.bsky.social @urochestersmd.bsky.social

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BrightFocus Foundation @brightfocus.bsky.social · Sep 6

The connection between sugar and age-related macular degeneration is stronger than you might think.

Research indicates that high-glycemic foods like soda, candy, white bread, and pasta create inflammatory compounds that can harm your retina.

Read more: https://bit.ly/465PeiL.

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Dr. Brittany J. Carr @drbjcarr.bsky.social · Jul 22

Thank you to the the @brightfocus.bsky.social for featuring my research on retinal deposits and their potential association with AMD. 🐸🧪 @dianebovenkamp.bsky.social

www.brightfocus.org/news/how-bet...

How Better Models of Macular Degeneration Could Help Prevent Vision Loss

Most experimental models that researchers use to study macular degeneration fall short. BrightFocus Macular Degeneration Research grant recipient Dr. Brittany Carr aims to change that.

www.brightfocus.org

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BrightFocus Foundation @brightfocus.bsky.social · Jul 28

Meet our newest grant recipients across Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration & glaucoma research!

These exceptional investigators were selected for their potential to bring us closer to cures by pursuing the untried, the unexpected, and the most promising ideas.

Explore their research: bit.ly/4mnqZTX

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Pranav Seth @thebuddhabird93.bsky.social · Sep 4

#FluorescenceFriday
The #seahorse #retina shows off its beauty — stunning stratification in the inner nuclear and inner #plexiform layers, with rod #bipolar terminals forming a brilliant band.

#Vertebrate retinas: the same basic plan, yet each species adds its own twist. Its so fascinating.

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Melanie D. White @melaniedwhite.bsky.social · Aug 29

Bird’s eye view, literally. 🐦👁️ Glowing quail embryo eye for #FluorescenceFriday, #DevBio 🧪🔬

A microscope image showing a developing eye in a quail embryo. Actin is labelled in orange and nuclei are in cyan.

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