Discovering new treatment strategies to cure blindness caused by neurodegeneration.
Advancing the careers of future influencers in vision science and biomedical research.
NEWS:
Dec 20, 2025: After 8.5 years at the Moran Eye Center, University of Utah, laboratory is moving to University of California, Irvine on Jan 1, 2026.
We will be hiring postdocs and lab technician. If you are interested to use pioneering approaches to understand human vision, disease and develop treatments to cure blindness while living in beautiful Southern California, email Frans Vinberg.
Dec 1, 2025: New publication accepted in Science Advances, stay tuned more details.
Nov 25, 2025: Dr. Silke Becker secured tenure track faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh.
Silke was an integral part of the laboratory since the beginning from 2017. Big loss but we are all happy for Silke and wish her success in her new position.
Millions of Americans are blind or severely visually impaired, and a majority of these blinding diseases affect the retina. Among the most common retinal diseases are AMD and retinitis pigmentosa (RP). In most cases, there is no treatment, and patients with these diseases can’t live independently or work.
The Vinberg Laboratory is using the latest technology and experimental approaches to understand how light signaling in the retina is affected in AMD and RP. This understanding is critical for developing new treatments to cure or slow visual impairment and blindness.
We use animal models of disease and human eye tissue from healthy as well as AMD-affected donors. We have established unique infrastructure and technology to recover and preserve human donor eyes that remain light-responsive (Nature). These tissues allow us to study functional aspects of the human fovea and macula and major blinding disorders as well as preclinical testing of sight-saving and -restoring therapies.
After 8 years at the Moran Eye Center, University of Utah, laboratory will move to Brunson Center for Translational Vision Research (BCTVR) at the University of California, Irvine. We will join a strong team of basic and translational scientists to tackle the most important and challenging problems in vision science and ophthalmology to advance development of therapies to treat retinal neurodegenerative diseases.
Dark adaptation and bright light vision
In aging, and specifically in AMD, one of the first noticeable effects on vision is the change in our ability to adapt to rapid decreases in ambient light. Patients, for instance, have often trouble driving at night when ambient light can change quickly (like the headlights from oncoming cars while driving). Photo credit: Matthew Michela.
On the news:
June 9, 2022: New paper published in Nature has been featured in several news outlets: ABC4; KSL; Nature podcast; WYPL-FM 89.3 Eye on Vision; EyewireTV,…
Sep 9, 2020: 5-year R01 from NIH/NEI grant awarded to study pigment bright light vision and dark adaptation in the human retina.
Dec 9, 2019: 4-year grant from Research to Prevent Blindness awarded to Vinberg lab to study dark adaptation mechanisms in the human macula.
Modulation of light signaling in the retina during retinal degenerative disease
Many blinding diseases are initially caused by photoreceptor degeneration and various strategies are being developed to restore vision including using stem cell and gene therapy approaches. However, it is now well known that photoreceptor degeneration triggers a remodeling process of the inner retina that may corrupt retinal signaling and make these therapies ineffective. Image modified from Leinonen et al. 2020, eLife.
On the news:
Nov 25, 2020: Research highlight about our research paper on the NIH/NEI news.
Nov 6, 2020: Frans’ radio interview by Vance Durbin at FM 89.3, Memphis, TX about the plasticity in the retina during photoreceptor degenerative disease.
Oxygen and light signaling in healthy and diabetic photoreceptors
Diabetic Retinopathy is a common complication in diabetic patients, and therefor one of the most common reasons for blindness in working-age adults in the USA. Traditionally Diabetic Retinopathy has been diagnosed by observing changes to blood vessels in the retina. Recently it has been discovered, however, that the function of photoreceptors is actually disrupted before these vascular changes occur and it is possible that this may drive the development of Diabetic Retinopathy. Image adopted from scEYEnce show how someone with relatively early Diabetic Retinopathy could perceive the world.