IACD Institute meeting & seminar: Roy Quinlan, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham. 'How to make and maintain the lens and its optical functions
1:15pm - 2:15pm /
Wednesday 1st March 2017
/ Venue: Ground floor, William Henry Duncan (Apex) Building Apex Building
- 0151 794 9003
- Brenda Smith
- Suitable for: Staff and students. This talk will be of interest to anyone interested in development and repair, the cytoskeleton, protein folding/chaperones, or generally interested in ocular biology!
- Admission: Free to staff and students
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IACD Institute meeting & seminar. Later start than usual. contact: Host Kevin Hamill if you wish to meet with the speaker.
This talk will be of interest to anyone interested in development and repair, the cytoskeleton, protein folding/chaperones, or generally interested in ocular biology!
Roy A Quinlan, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham: ‘How to make and maintain the lens and its optical functions – so simple and yet still not understood or appreciated.’ Professor Roy Quinlan is one of world leading scientist researching lens biology and intermediate filaments. He joined the University of Durham in 2001 having previously worked at the University of Dundee, at the LMB Cambridge and in the German Cancer Research Centre. He is an expert in cytoskeleton and particularly intermediate filaments and microtubules including determining the coiled coil pitch of myosin LS2, structural aspects of GFAP and lamins. Moreover Here his interest in the cytoskeleton in astrocytes, cardiomyocytes and the lens led to the discovery of the functionally important interaction of the small heat shock protein chaperones with intermediate filaments and their role in mediating the biomechanical properties of cells.
The eye lens is a deceptively simple tissue, but it is a prime example of the D’Arcy Thompson principle that "Form and Function" are linked. Our research addresses fundamental questions such as how do cells know their relative position in a tissue? What emergent properties are important for tissue formation? We believe that at least part of the answer to these questions lies in the lens epithelium. It is here that the iconic hexagonal shape of the lens fibre cells is established and the consequential spatial order established. During development this is easy to rationalize as the lens increases layer by layer onto a preformed template, but what happens when the lens regenerates? What determines the organization of the lens fibre cells in that scenario? We have built an interdisciplinary research team (John Girkin, Chris Saunter (Physics), Junjie Wu and Boguslaw Obara (SECS) with skills needed to study cell dynamics in the living zebrafish and in regenerating rat lenses. We have produced a mathematical model for the lens epithelium and we hope eventually to have a finite element model for lens accommodation. Along the way, we are studying the role of the intermediate filament cytoskeleton and their associated protein chaperones in maintaining lens optical functions, their effects upon cell shape and how aging and disease affect their respective functions. The eye lens is a system that illuminates all the major key biological questions on ageing, cancer prevention, apoptosis as well as protein longevity. I shall select examples from my research portfolio to illustrate how form and function are linked so perfectly in the eye lens.
This talk will be of interest to anyone interested in development and repair, the cytoskeleton, protein folding/chaperones, or generally interested in ocular biology!
Roy A Quinlan, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham: ‘How to make and maintain the lens and its optical functions – so simple and yet still not understood or appreciated.’ Professor Roy Quinlan is one of world leading scientist researching lens biology and intermediate filaments. He joined the University of Durham in 2001 having previously worked at the University of Dundee, at the LMB Cambridge and in the German Cancer Research Centre. He is an expert in cytoskeleton and particularly intermediate filaments and microtubules including determining the coiled coil pitch of myosin LS2, structural aspects of GFAP and lamins. Moreover Here his interest in the cytoskeleton in astrocytes, cardiomyocytes and the lens led to the discovery of the functionally important interaction of the small heat shock protein chaperones with intermediate filaments and their role in mediating the biomechanical properties of cells.
The eye lens is a deceptively simple tissue, but it is a prime example of the D’Arcy Thompson principle that "Form and Function" are linked. Our research addresses fundamental questions such as how do cells know their relative position in a tissue? What emergent properties are important for tissue formation? We believe that at least part of the answer to these questions lies in the lens epithelium. It is here that the iconic hexagonal shape of the lens fibre cells is established and the consequential spatial order established. During development this is easy to rationalize as the lens increases layer by layer onto a preformed template, but what happens when the lens regenerates? What determines the organization of the lens fibre cells in that scenario? We have built an interdisciplinary research team (John Girkin, Chris Saunter (Physics), Junjie Wu and Boguslaw Obara (SECS) with skills needed to study cell dynamics in the living zebrafish and in regenerating rat lenses. We have produced a mathematical model for the lens epithelium and we hope eventually to have a finite element model for lens accommodation. Along the way, we are studying the role of the intermediate filament cytoskeleton and their associated protein chaperones in maintaining lens optical functions, their effects upon cell shape and how aging and disease affect their respective functions. The eye lens is a system that illuminates all the major key biological questions on ageing, cancer prevention, apoptosis as well as protein longevity. I shall select examples from my research portfolio to illustrate how form and function are linked so perfectly in the eye lens.