Principal Investigator
Claudio Punzo
Associate Professor and Principal Investigator
"Seeing is believing!
I was always fascinated by the eye. After I learned how the eye evolved and develops in Dr. Gehring's group I decided to dedicate my passion for the eye towards maintaining it functional for people who suffer from vision loss. To that end I joined the group of Dr. Constance Cepko at Harvard where I learned about vertebrate eye development while at the same time focusing on vertebrate retinal degeneration. Together with Dr. Cepko we proposed a new model for vision loss in Retinitis Pigmentosa and ever since my goal is to extend vision for those who suffer from this debilitating disease."
Education
2017 Associate Professor, UMass Chan Medical School
2010 Assistant Professor, UMass Chan Medical School
2002 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA; “Seondary cone death in Retinitis Pigmentosa”; Advisor: Prof Constance Cepko
2001 PhD in Cell Biology, University of Basel (Biozentrum), Basel, Switzerland; “Functional Analysis of Pax-6 genes during Drosophila eye development and evolution ”; Advisor: Prof Walter Gehring
1997 BSc in Cell Biology, University of Basel (Biozentrum), Basel, Switzerland; “Regulation of temperature-induced heat-shock reaction of Drosophila Ambigua and Drosophila melanogaster”; Advisor: Prof Walter Gehring