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 retina cell types.