Dr. Bob Chow
Areas of research focus
- Developmental biology
- Neurobiology
- Molecular biology
- Retina
Our lab is interested in the mechanisms that regulate embryonic and postnatal development. Understanding how the different cell types, tissues and organs that make up our body are generated is not only a fundmental problem in science, but is also relevant to human health, as many of the genes and pathways that shape development are involved in human disease.
One of our major areas of focus is vertebrate retinal development, where we have been using molecular and genetic approaches to study how transcriptional regulation and cell signaling pathways regulate cell fate determination and differentiation.
More recently, we have been exploring how post-transcriptional regulation by small non-coding molecules called microRNAs fine-tune the developing nervous system. This work has shed light on diseases such as aniridia which arises from defects in the correct dosage of a gene called PAX6.
- BIOL 309 Developmental Biology
- BIOL 467 Neural Development