The lab's basic and translational research programs span retinal ganglion cell and optic nerve development, survival and regeneration relevant to vision restoration in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies.

Neurons in the adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) including retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) lose their ability to regenerate after injury or in disease, while immature neurons regenerate robustly. This regenerative failure is thought to be due, in part, to a developmental loss in intrinsic growth capacity. A major focus of our lab is to identify intrinsic regulators of axon growth and test their potential as therapeutic strategies to promote axon regeneration after injury.

Optic nerve regeneration remains the major remaining barrier to whole eye transplant, which could restore vision to millions of blind patients. With previous funding from the Department of Defense (DOD), the Goldberg lab and collaborators have made significant progress towards this goal, and hope to support translating these advances from the lab to the clinic.

Mitochondria are critical to retinal ganglion cell survival and regeneration, as well as maintaining processes required for neuronal connectivity and function. We are studying the influence of mitochondria in axon development and growth in order to identify manipulations of mitochondria that promote both survival and regeneration of injured or diseased retinal ganglion cells. 

We culture human corneal endothelial cells from donor corneas or derived from stem cells and study their properties, with a goal of using these cultured cells to replace the dysfunctional corneal endothelial cells in corneal diseases, or after trauma or cataract surgery.

We seek to understand and quantify the protein synthesis and transport changes in optic neuropathies. Dissecting cellular pathways on the protein level will uncover novel candidates for therapeutics, as well as further our understanding of the retinal response to injury.

Stem cell brings a new hope for cell-based replacement therapy. In our lab, we use human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to differentiate RGCs and corneal cells.