The Marine Biological Laboratory has added another laboratory to its year-round, resident research program. Established by Boston University Medical School, the new Eye Research Laboratory at the MBL is directed by Dr. Seymour Zigman, a member of the MBL Corporation and an MBL summer investigator for the past 39 years. Nancy and Keen Rafferty are also members of the Eye Lab team. Dr. Zigman comes to Boston University and the MBL from the University of Rochester School of Medicine where he has served as Professor of Ophthalmology and Biochemistry and Director of Ophthalmology Research since 1979. He moved his laboratory permanently to the MBL this summer after being appointed Professor of Ophthalmology at Boston University School of Medicine.
Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world.
More than 1.5 million people in the United States will develop cataracts as they age. Because expensive surgery is the only available therapy, cataracts often go untreated in third world countries. The Eye Lab team at the MBL wants to know what biochemical reactions cause cataracts, and how to delay or even reverse the process. In the lab, Keen Rafferty grows the mammalian lens cells used in the research, Nancy Rafferty examines them by microscopy and immunochemistry, and Sy Zigman uses biochemical and biophysical techniques to observe the experimental results. They test whether exposing these cells to ultraviolet light damages them, and how.