Brian Clark's Lab – WashU Department of Ophthalmology

The Clark Lab conducts research investigating how the vertebrate retina develops from a pool of multi-potent retinal progenitor cells (RPCs). We use a combination of molecular biology and genetic techniques to understand how gene regulatory networks regulate RPC proliferation, cell-cycle exit, and cell differentiation, with the long-term goal of understanding how genetic aberrations contribute to retinal disorders. Areas of research within the lab include:

1. Determining the mechanisms by which gene expression and cell fate are temporally regulated.
2. Examination of DNA methylation homeostasis during retinal cell fate specification.
3. Characterization of long non-coding RNA expression, function, and scaffolding complexes
4. Genome-wide profiling of cis-regulatory sequence activity during retinal development
5. Implementation of novel tools to assess epigenetic history of retinal cell types.
6. Discovery and modeling of novel gene mutations that contribute to Inherited Retinal Disease.