Join us for:
Claudio Punzo, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of Massachusetts Medical School
“Aerobic Glycolysis in Retinal Diseases”
Wednesday, October 16th
12:00 – 1:00 pm
LG-101A, McKnight Brain Institute
About the Punzo lab:
The research focus of my group is on photoreceptor metabolism and the signaling pathways that regulate photoreceptor metabolism. We study retinal degenerative diseases that affect cone photoreceptors, since cones are essential for color, daylight and high acuity vision in humans. However, because of the peculiar interdependence between rods and cones in humans and mouse we are also interested in rod photoreceptors. In particular, we are interested in how cell metabolism is controlled in both types of photoreceptors of healthy retinas and how cell metabolism adapts during diseases that cause photoreceptor loss. Another area of interest is how photoreceptor metabolism adapts during the process of aging, since aging is known to lead to a host of metabolic changes in the entire body. Additionally, metabolic disease conditions that affect the entire body such as diabetes and only secondarily cause retinal abnormalities such as diabetic retinopathy (DR) are also of interests.