The Friedlander Laboratory Department of Cell Biology

Overview Our laboratory is interested in understanding underlying mechanisms of ocular angiogenesis and the abnormalities in this process that lead to retinal vascular disease. Since abnormal angiogenesis is frequently the final common pathway leading to the vast majority of diseases that result in catastrophic loss of vision, we are also interested in understanding mechanisms of retinal degeneration that lead to ocular angiogenesis. This aspect of our program focuses on the role of polytopic membrane proteins of visual importance that are mutated in certain inherited retinal degenerations. While most of our effort is devoted to understanding ocular angiogenesis, the role of abnormal membrane protein targeting and integration provides an alternate approach to identifying potential therapeutic avenues to treating diseases for which there are currently no effective treatments. Finally, a third component of our research program focuses on developing physiologically relevant animal models of ocular angiogenesis and drug delivery systems useful in the treatment of human retinal neovascular and degenerative diseases.   Retinal Vascular Development Brain Tumor Angiogenesis Endothelial Progenitor Cell Biology Polytopic Membrane Topogenesis Anti-Angiogenics Ocular Gene Therapy Hemangiomas       © 2003 The Scripps Research Institute - All Rights Reserved