Leung Lab Blog

Sylvia and Fai attended the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and presented their work on novel signal transduction for photoreceptor development and using traditional Chinese medicine to treat retinal degeneration. Sylvia received a National Eye Institute Travel Grant and Yeunkyung Woo Achieve Excellence Travel Award to attend the meeting. Sylvia and Fai also interacted with colleagues all over the world during different events including the SERI reception, ARVO dinner with The Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical College, and ARVO CUHK-JSIEC Research Networking Evening. More pictures to follow.

Sylvia and Fai in front of Sylvia’s poster

I visited Ho Yu College in Hong Kong last month. A good mentor Dr. William Mak has been running a great biotechnology education program for the primary and secondary school students, as well as the public there. See an old post about their outreach program in which they fit a whole research lab into custom-built bus! I shared the research program of our laboratory at Purdue University on using zebrafish to screen drugs for vision benefit.

I outlined our approach on using simple visual behaviour assays to identify positive effects of drugs. I specifically emphasized on the potential to analyze many of traditional Chinese medicines; the treasure that we have been consuming for generations. Some of these possibilities are outlined in our recent review paper:

Zhang LY, Chong L, Cho J, Liao PC, Shen F, Leung YF. Drug Screening to Treat Early-Onset Eye Diseases: Can Zebrafish Expedite the Discovery? Asia-Pac J Ophthalmol 2012; 1:374-383. [Full text][pdf]

The interaction with the students was fantastic. They were very imaginative and eager to ask questions all the time! Their enthusiasm was infectious and is the driving force of scientific progress. That also reminded me of the problem of our education in stifling creativity when students are “educated”, which I wrote in a separate post recently.

This is truly an enjoyable experience and I look forward to visiting them again soon!

On 12th November 2012, Prof. Calvin Chi-Pui Pang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Prof. Haoyu Chen from the Joint Shantou International Eye Center (JSIEC), Shantou University & the Chinese University of Hong Kong visited the Leung Lab and the research facilities at Purdue University.

Prof Pang and Chen first met with Prof. Marietta Harrison, Associate Vice-President for Research and Dr. Geanie Umberger, Assistant Vice President for Corporate and Foundation Relations to discuss collaborative plans between the Leung Lab, Purdue and JSIEC. Our long-term goal is to explore the opportunities in clinical eye research and drug screening  in China.

From left to right: Dr. Umberger, Prof. Harrison, Prof. Pang, Prof. Leung, and Prof. Chen.

Then, Profs. Pang and Chen visited the Bindley Bioscience Center. Dr. Tommy Sors, the Center Project Manager, showcased the Purdue’s infrastructure for preclinical investigations.

From left to right: Prof. Chen, Prof. Leung, Prof. Pang and Dr. Sors.

Finally, there was a dinner gathering with Prof. Marietta and other distinguished professors from the Department of Biological Sciences to celebrate friendship and new collaborative relationships.

Back row: Prof. Don Ready, Prof. Chen, Prof. Leung and Dr. Liyun Zhang, postdoctoral fellow in the Leung Lab.
Front row: Prof. Bill Pak, Prof. Marietta, Prof. Pang, and Prof. Richard Kuhn.