People

Lab Personnel

Bryan W. Jones (Director/PI)                           801.585.5954      bryan.jones@m.cc.utah.edu
Personal  CV PDF  NIH Biosketch PDF

Jia-Hui Yang (Anatomist/Technician)               801.585.7259     jia-hui.yang@hsc.utah.edu

James R. Anderson (Software Architect)                                    James.R.Anderson@utah.edu
Personal

Keenan Wells (Laboratory Manager)              801.585.6502     keenan.wells@utah.edu

Nat Nelson (Microscopy/Coding)

Crystal Sigulinsky (Postdoc)                             801.585.6501   crystal.sigulinsky@hsc.utah.edu
Personal  CV PDF

Becca Pfeiffer (Postdoc)                                   801.585.6501    R.Pfeiffer@utah.edu
Personal

Jeebika Dahal (Undergraduate)                      801.585.6501     jeebikadahal@gmail.com

Selena Sullivan (Undergraduate)                    801.585.6501

Olivia Haddadin (Undergraduate)                   801.585.6501

Isabel Anna Barrera (Undergraduate)            801.585.6501

About the Marclab for Connectomics
We are always intrigued by people who are as obsessed with the retina as we are. We really like people who have quests in mind and who enjoy good visualization.

Research Areas

Retinal circuitry and electron microscopy :: The Retinal Connectome

Retinal degenerative diseases

Imaging, image analysis and novel molecular probes

Metabolomics and cell interactions

Computational molecular phenotyping (CMP)

Emeritus

Robert E. Marc (Emeritus)                                                             robert.marc@hsc.utah.edu
Personal  CV PDF  NIH Biosketch PDF

Carl B. Watt (Staff Scientist/Anatomist)          801.585.5178     carl.watt@hsc.utah.edu
Personal  CV PDF

Alumni
Jay. F. Muller, Ph.D. Thesis: EM autoradiography of GABAergic and glycinergic retinal circuits. Currently Research Assistant Professor, Dept. Pharmacology, Physiology and Neuroscience, University of South Carolina.Recent paper: Muller JF, Mascagni F, McDonald AJ. Serotonin-immunoreactive axon terminals innervate pyramidal cells and interneurons in the rat basolateral amygdala. J Comp Neurol. 2007 Nov 20;505(3):314-35. ∞Pubmed

Steve Raiguel, Ph.D. Thesis: Glutamate receptors in developing chick visual system. Currently Staff, Laboratorium voor Neuro-en-Psychofysiologie, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Medical School, Belgium.Recent paper: Raiguel S, Vogels R, Mysore SG, Orban GA. Learning to see the difference specifically alters the most informative V4 neurons. J Neurosci. 2006 Jun 14;26(24):6589-602. ∞Pubmed

Stuart D. Critz, Ph.D. Thesis: Inhibitory control of retinal dopaminergic neurons. Currently Associate Professor, Dept. Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of South Alabama College of Medicine.Recent paper: Kuno A, Critz SD, Cui L, Solodushko V, Yang XM, Krahn T, Albrecht B, Philipp S, Cohen MV, Downey JM. Protein kinase C protects preconditioned rabbit hearts by increasing sensitivity of adenosine A2b-dependent signaling during early reperfusion. J Mol Cell Cardiol. 2007 Sep;43(3):262-71. Epub 2007 May 24. ∞Pubmed

Burt Evans, Ph.D. Thesis: Outer hair cell motility. Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Physiology, Northwestern University. Burt died of ALS in 1997. He was one of my favorite people. The important story: Burt was looking for a thesis project and came to my office. I showed him Denis Baylor’s 1979 J Physiology paper “Responses of retinal rods to single photons” and Burt said: “Wow.” And left .. for six months. Then he came to my office and said “Come see.” I followed him into the basement of the Jack L. Bangs Speech and Hearing Building in Houston, Texas. There, in an abandoned acoustic chamber, Burt had assembled a lathe head (stolen from our machine shop), a DeFonbrune micromanipulator (stolen from my lab), a Zeiss microscope (purchased on time with his pitiful stipend – try that today from Zeiss!) and assorted electronics. Under the scope was an isolated outer hair cell in a suction pipette, dancing every time Burt pulsed it with current. Burt smiled: “It moves.”Key Paper: Dallos P, Evans BN. High-frequency motility of outer hair cells and the cochlear amplifier. Science. 1995 Mar 31;267(5206):2006-9. ∞Pubmed

The National Organization for Hearing Research Foundation has established a research award in Burt’s memory.

Bryan W. Jones. Ph.D. Thesis: Computational Molecular Phenotyping in Retinal Degenerations. A watershed in retinitis pigmentosa research. Currently Research Associate Professor, Dept Ophthalmology, University of Utah.  PI: Marclab for Connectomics.
Recent paper: A pathoconnectome of early neurodegeneration: Network changes in retinal degeneration Rebecca L. Pfeiffer, James R. Anderson, Jeebika Dahal, Jessica C Garcia, Jia-Hui Yang, Crystal L. Sigulinsky, Kevin Rapp, Daniel P. Emrich, Carl B. Watt, Hope AB Johnstun, Alexis R. Houser, Robert E. Marc, and Bryan W. Jones.
Exp Eye Res. Aug 15 2020, 199:108196
PubMed Direct Link PDF

Michael Kalloniatis, OD, Ph.D.(postdoctoral fellow). Formerly Robert G. Leitl Professor and Head of Dept of Optometry and Vision Sciences, University of Auckland and currently hornorary Professor, University of Melbourne.
Recent paper: Acosta ML, Bumsted O’Brien KM, Tan SS, Kalloniatis M. Emergence of cellular markers and functional ionotropic glutamate receptors on tangentially dispersed cells in the developing mouse retina. J Comp Neurol. 2008 Jan 20;506(3):506-523.∞Pubmed

Ralph F. Murry, Ph.D. (postdoctoral fellow) Wrote the first and in some ways the best clustering code for CMP. He carried our lab into the future on his shoulders. He died in 2007 and we miss him.
Key Paper: Marc RE, R Murry, SF Basinger 1995 Pattern recognition of amino acid signatures in retinal neurons. J Neurosci 15:5106-5129. ∞Pubmed

Eduarda van Haesendonck, Ph.D. (postdoctoral fellow) University of Leuven, Retired. She kept the spirit of the dopamine cell alive and expanded its repertoire.
Key Paper: Van Haesendonck E, RE Marc, L Missotten 1993 New aspects of dopaminergic interplexiform cell organization in the goldfish retina. J Comp Neurol 333:503-518. ∞Pubmed

J. Scott Lauritzen, Ph.D. Currently Staff Research Scientist, HHMI Janelia Farm. Previous Personal Page (not maintained). jscottlauritzen@gmail.com
Recent paper: The Rod-Cone Crossover Connectome of Mammalian Bipolar Cells. J Comp Neurol   doi 10.1002/cne.24084  ∞Pubmed

Alexis Houser, undergraduate. Currently US Army National Guard. Previous Personal Page (not maintained).
Recent paper: A pathoconnectome of early neurodegeneration: Network changes in retinal degeneration. Exp Eye Res. Aug 15 2020, 199:108196 PubMed Direct Link PDF

Hope Johnstun, former lab manager. Currently clothing designer. Previous Personal Page (not maintained)

Kayla Eschenbacher, Neuroscience Graduate Student (Rotating). Previous Personal Page (not maintained)

Jessica Garcia, undergraduate student (Now at University of Washington, School of Medicine). Previous Personal Page (not maintained).
Recent paper: A pathoconnectome of early neurodegeneration: Network changes in retinal degeneration
Rebecca L. Pfeiffer, James R. Anderson, Jeebika Dahal, Jessica C Garcia, Jia-Hui Yang, Crystal L. Sigulinsky, Kevin Rapp, Daniel P. Emrich, Carl B. Watt, Hope AB Johnstun, Alexis R. Houser, Robert E. Marc, and Bryan W. Jones.
Exp Eye Res. Aug 15 2020, 199:108196
PubMed Direct Link PDF