Dr Jorn Lakowski is part of the Vision Science group, headed by Professor Andrew Lotery. He is interested in understanding retinal development and the molecular causes of inherited retinal diseases in order to develop new therapeutic applications.

They use “human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) derived retinal organoids” and have mini retinas grown from scratch. During differentiation, the mini retinas fully recapitulate human retinal development. Their composition and organisation is very similar composition to the in vivo counterpart. They are also at the later stages light sensitive, as you would expect for a retina.

In conjunction with the hPSC system, the team conducts genome engineering using CRISPR/Cas9 in order to generate knockout models for genes of interest or generate fluorescent reporter hPSC lines. They have a genetically tractable human model system for the retina. As the retina is part of the brain and the differentiation protocols are similar, they could also make cerebral or other forebrain organoids.