Rachel Wong

Last updated
Rachel Oi Lun Wong
Alma mater Australian National University
Scientific career
Institutions Stanford University
University of Queensland
Washington University in St. Louis
University of Washington
Thesis Ontogeny of the cat retinal ganglion cell layer  (1985)

Rachel Wong is an American neuroscientist who is a professor of Biological Structure at the University of Washington. She studies the developmental mechanisms that determine synaptic connectivity in the central nervous system. She was elected to the National Vision Research Institute of Australia in 2018 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.

Contents

Early life and education

Wong attended high school in Malaysia where she first became interested in physics. [1] She would spend her lunch breaks examining living things, collected from a creek near her home, under the school microscope. [1] Growing up, she learned to play musical instruments, much encouraged by her father. She moved to Monash University in Australia for her undergraduate degree, where she majored in physics and completed a research project in collaboration with the Biochemistry department. [1] Specifically, her research used x-ray and neutron scattering to better understand muscular dystrophy. Wong earned her doctorate in vision science at the Australian National University. [1] Her doctoral research, under the supervision of Professor Abbie Hughes, investigated the cellular organization and ontogeny of the cat retinal ganglion cell layer. [2] She moved to the National Research Institute of Australia as a research associate, where she worked under Professor Abbie Hughes and Dr. David I. Vaney before moving to the United States. Wong was a C.J. Martin Fellow at Stanford University, mentored by Professor Carla J. Shatz. After a few years in the States, Wong returned to the University of Queensland as an R.D. Wright Fellow in Dr. Vaney's laboratory at the Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Center led by Professor Jack Pettigrew. [1]

Research and career

Wong joined the faculty of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis in 1994, where she was promoted to Professor in 2004. [1] In 2006, she moved to the University of Washington. [1] to join the Department of Biological Structure and became the chair of department in 2017. Wong studies the developmental mechanisms that determine synaptic connectivity in the central nervous system. Her research has focussed on identifying the cellular mechanisms underlying the proper assembly of neural circuits in the vertebrate retina of a variety of species, including human, Danio rerio (Zebrafish) and mice. [3] Wong investigates the development of neural circuitry in vivo and in vitro using cellular imaging approaches and molecular genetics. [4]

Wong was appointed to the steering committee of the National Eye Institute Audacious Goals Initiative (AGI), a challenge which looks to identify and support the most promising research towards curing blindness. [5] She was a Rothmans Fellow (Sydney University Endowment), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, an Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fellow, and a Paul G. Allen Distinguished Investigator. Her research achievements in vision science are acknowledged by the Brian B. Boycott Prize (FASEB Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing), the Helen Keller Award (Department of Ophthalmology, University of Washington and the Lions Club of Multiple District 19), and the Friedenwald Award (the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology). In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Awards and honors

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retinal ganglion cell</span> Type of cell within the eye

A retinal ganglion cell (RGC) is a type of neuron located near the inner surface of the retina of the eye. It receives visual information from photoreceptors via two intermediate neuron types: bipolar cells and retina amacrine cells. Retina amacrine cells, particularly narrow field cells, are important for creating functional subunits within the ganglion cell layer and making it so that ganglion cells can observe a small dot moving a small distance. Retinal ganglion cells collectively transmit image-forming and non-image forming visual information from the retina in the form of action potential to several regions in the thalamus, hypothalamus, and mesencephalon, or midbrain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melanopsin</span> Mammalian protein found in Homo sapiens

Melanopsin is a type of photopigment belonging to a larger family of light-sensitive retinal proteins called opsins and encoded by the gene Opn4. In the mammalian retina, there are two additional categories of opsins, both involved in the formation of visual images: rhodopsin and photopsin in the rod and cone photoreceptor cells, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motion perception</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amacrine cell</span>

Amacrine cells are interneurons in the retina. They are named from the Greek roots a– ("non"), makr– ("long") and in– ("fiber"), because of their short neuronal processes. Amacrine cells are inhibitory neurons, and they project their dendritic arbors onto the inner plexiform layer (IPL), they interact with retinal ganglion cells and/or bipolar cells.

Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), also called photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (pRGC), or melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells (mRGCs), are a type of neuron in the retina of the mammalian eye. The presence of ipRGCs was first suspected in 1927 when rodless, coneless mice still responded to a light stimulus through pupil constriction, This implied that rods and cones are not the only light-sensitive neurons in the retina. Yet research on these cells did not advance until the 1980s. Recent research has shown that these retinal ganglion cells, unlike other retinal ganglion cells, are intrinsically photosensitive due to the presence of melanopsin, a light-sensitive protein. Therefore they constitute a third class of photoreceptors, in addition to rod and cone cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carla J. Shatz</span> American neuroscientist

Carla J. Shatz is an American neurobiologist and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">POU4F2</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

POU domain, class 4, transcription factor 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the POU4F2 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parasol cell</span>

A parasol cell, sometimes called an M cell or M ganglion cell, is one type of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) located in the ganglion cell layer of the retina. These cells project to magnocellular cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) as part of the magnocellular pathway in the visual system. They have large cell bodies as well as extensive branching dendrite networks and as such have large receptive fields. Relative to other RGCs, they have fast conduction velocities. While they do show clear center-surround antagonism, they receive no information about color. Parasol ganglion cells contribute information about the motion and depth of objects to the visual system.

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Samer Hattar is a chronobiologist and a leader in the field of non-image forming photoreception. He is the Chief of the Section on Light and Circadian Rhythms at the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health. He was previously an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. He is best known for his investigation into the role of melanopsin and intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGC) in the entrainment of circadian rhythms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas G. McMahon</span>

Douglas G. McMahon is a professor of Biological Sciences and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. McMahon has contributed several important discoveries to the field of chronobiology and vision. His research focuses on connecting the anatomical location in the brain to specific behaviors. As a graduate student under Gene Block, McMahon identified that the basal retinal neurons (BRNs) of the molluscan eye exhibited circadian rhythms in spike frequency and membrane potential, indicating they are the clock neurons. He became the 1986 winner of the Society for Neuroscience's Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience for his work. Later, he moved on to investigate visual, circadian, and serotonergic mechanisms of neuroplasticity. In addition, he helped find that constant light can desynchronize the circadian cells in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). He has always been interested in the underlying causes of behavior and examining the long term changes in behavior and physiology in the neurological modular system. McMahon helped identifying a retrograde neurotransmission system in the retina involving the melanopsin containing ganglion cells and the retinal dopaminergic amacrine neurons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew D. Huberman</span> American neuroscientist

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Carol Ann Mason is a Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University in the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. She studies axon guidance in visual pathways in an effort to restore vision to the blind. Her research focuses on the retinal ganglion cell. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.

Marla Beth Feller is the Paul Licht Distinguished Professor in Biological Sciences and Member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies the mechanisms that underpin the assembly of neural circuits during development. Feller is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Susan Ellen Shore is an American audiologist who is the Merle Lawrence Collegiate Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Michigan. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.

Tiffany M. Schmidt is an American researcher and chronobiologist, currently working as an Associate Professor of Neurobiology at Northwestern University. Schmidt, who works in Evanston, Illinois, studies the role of retinal ganglion cells (RGC) to determine how light can affect behavior, hormonal changes, vision, sleep, and circadian entrainment.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "179: Dr. Rachel Wong: A Researcher with an Eye for Great Science Studying Retinal Cell Rewiring After Damage". People Behind the Science Podcast. 2014-11-12. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  2. Wong, Rachel Oi Lun (1985). "Ontogeny of the cat retinal ganglion cell layer". doi:10.25911/5d651306e496d.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. "Rachel Wong Laboratory". depts.washington.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  4. "Rachel Wong | Graduate Program in Neuroscience" . Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  5. "Audacious Goals Initiative". www.nei.nih.gov. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  6. "NVRI Fellowship". Australian College of Optometry. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  7. "2021 NAS Election". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2021-04-27.