Vargis Lab at Utah State

11/12/2022

Image of the week!

We model cell detachment in eye disease by growing retinal epithelial cells on stencils & peeling them away in this -supported project. Here, we show the cells just after stencil removal.

Thank you to PhD candidate Chase Paterson (.paterson.73) for the image! Scale bar is 100 microns.

03/23/2022

12/13/2021

Image of the week!

Check out these beautiful retinal pigment epithelial cells (scale bar = 100 um)! 😍😍😍😍😍

PhD student Chase Paterson gets pig eyes from our local butcher shop. Once the growing cells look healthy like this, we put them in scenarios that mimic injury, trauma, and stress. Then we see how they respond to figure out how these cells are contributing to diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.

10/05/2020

Image of the week: We made tiny areas of degeneration using primary porcine cells & stencils! Our work helps us understand what happens when our eyes experience cell injury or death so we can figure out better ways to prevent & treat vision loss.

National Eye Institute NIH AREA Program BrightFocus

USU Biological Engineering

09/08/2020

Image of the week: more fun for our NIH AREA Program National Eye Institute award --> silicon wafer posts to make stencils & control retinal cell growth.

We're thankful to USU Biological Engineering and USU College of Engineering for these resources that help us with our research and student training goals.

pc: Chase Paterson, PhD student

09/01/2020

image of the week: for our National Eye Institute grant, we engineer ways to control retinal cell growth to study its contribution to disease. PhD student Chase is working on -based stencil-patterning methods to match degeneration found in images.

08/29/2020

Cool!

08/20/2020

Utah State University will provide short-term training for in-demand industries to help people looking to change careers or advance the skills of those economically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

08/18/2020

it's been a while, but we're back with an ! check out this transgenic fiber image from recently graduated MS student Matt Clegg!

Matt used fibers like these to support cell growth, part of our work towards building better disease models.

07/28/2020

USU President Noelle Cockett has implemented a policy that makes face coverings mandatory through fall semester. Read more about policy details, expectations, enforcement and exemptions at: usu.edu/today/story/usu-makes-face-coverings-mandatory-for-fall