Light Microscopy:
We use light microscopy to examine sections of retina and brain after using techniques to label whole cell populations or specific subpopulations of neurons or glia.

Immunohistochemistry
We use antibodies directed at particular proteins to label the cells containing those proteins. The antibody is then visualized by light microscopy. These studies use wholemount pieces of retina, or frozen sections of retina or brain cut on a cryostat or sliding microtome. The proteins of current interest include opsin, calbindin D-28, protein kinase C, vimentin, nestin, CHX-10 and ubiquitin.

Semithin Plastic Sections
Pieces of retina are embedded in plastic and cut as two micron thick sections to allow detailed examination of retinal morphology with the light microscope. These sections are often drawn with the aid of a camera lucida to allow measurements to be made of layer thickness and other parameters.

Tissue Sources
We use human donor eyes for our work on retinitis pigmentosa. These are supplied by the Foundation Fighting Blindness. We also examine rabbit retinas in our efforts to develop an inducible model of photoreceptor degeneration, and shortly we will begin to use rodents with mutations that lead to retinal degeneration, to determine whether neurotrophin-eluting hydrogels are therapeutic in this model. Our work on aging uses tissue obtained from young and old rhesus monkeys.