This application requests funds to continue to support five predoctoral and two postdoctoral trainees per year, in a university-wide training program in visual science, at the systems, cellular, and molecular levels. Training focuses on analysis of the visual pathways from retina to brain, and cellular, molecular and genetic aspects of the normal and diseased eye. Thirty-nine faculty are distributed on two campuses of Columbia University: Thirty-two of this faculty are in basic and clinical science departments on the Health Sciences Campus, 168th Street and Broadway, and 7 are drawn from four departments from the main (Morningside) campus at 116th and Broadway. During the last funding period, Columbia established a new Mind-Brain Institute with 6 investigators focused on the primate visual cortex, a new fMRI and MR spectroscopy facility in the Neurological Institute, and a new clinical research center within the Department of Ophthalmology. A Center for Theoretical Neuroscience has been initiated by two new faculty. Four of the 34 original mentors have been replaced by 5 new faculty and 4 extant faculty. Section 1 includes 13 faculty focused on the visual and oculomotor systems in humans and monkeys using neurophysiology, psychophysics, computational modeling, and imaging. Four faculty in Section 2 focus on cell specification, retinal axon guidance, and biophysics and plasticity of dendrites and spines. Section 3 comprises 22 faculty studying structure/function of rhodopsin, retinoid processing, and degenerative processes, including macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy, and cataracts. The research carried out by the mentors and trainees matches the goals in NEI's National Plan for Eye and Vision Research for Retinal Diseases, Cornea, and Lens and Cataract programs, as well as the Strabismus, Amblyopia and Visual Processing. Trainees will continue to be recruited by advertisement and via acceptance through a number of other strong and selective graduate programs such as the MD-PhD program, Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior, and Integrated Program in Cellular, Biochemical and Biophysical studies. Through activities such as courses, thesis committees, symposia, seminars, and a Greater New York Vision Club, it is expected that faculty and trainees will continue to interact, and produce a new generation of vision scientists who will further elucidate information processing, development, and disease of the visual system. ? ?
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