Reprogramming glia to regenerate retinal neurons: never too late to change their fate

Thomas Reh, PhD
Professor
Department of Biological Structure
University of Washington – School of Medicine
Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine

This conference is hosted by Michel Cayouette, PhD. This conference is part of the 2024-2025 IRCM conference calendar.

About Thomas Reh
Dr. Thomas A. Reh is currently a Professor in the Department of Biological Structure at the University of Washington (Seattle). He received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) in 1977 and his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) in 1981. He went on to postdoctoral studies at Princeton and joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary in 1984 as an Assistant Professor and Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) Scholar. He moved to the University of Washington in 1989, as Associate Professor and then in 1994 was promoted to Professor. He served as Director of the Neurobiology and Behavior Program from 2001 to 2007.

The overall goal of Dr. Reh’s research is to understand the cellular and molecular biology of regeneration in the nervous system. He has worked at the interface between development and regeneration, focusing on the retina, with the goal of applying the principles learned from developmental biology to design rationale strategies for promoting regeneration in the adult mammalian retina. His lab developed the first method for directing human embryonic stem cells to become retinal progenitors and neurons, and demonstrated they could be used to repair animal models of human retinitis pigmentosa. His lab discovered that Müller glia serve as the source of retinal regeneration in non-mammalian species, and he subsequently pioneered the potential for stimulating functional retinal regeneration in the mouse retina by reprogramming Müller glia with proneural transcription factors. His research has been funded through numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and private foundations, and he has served on several national and international grant review panels, including NIH study sections.  He is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness and on the editorial boards of IOVS, TVST and PLOS One. He has received many awards for his work, including the Jerzy E. Rose award, the AHFMR Scholar award, the Alfred E. Sloan Scholar award, and the Board of Directors’ Award from the FFB. He has published over 200 journal articles, reviews and books in the field of retinal regeneration and development (H-index = 92), including co-authoring the leading textbook on Developmental Neurobiology, with Bill Harris and Dan Sanes. 

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