For Eyes

The retina is where we focus the world. Its dish-shaped layers of cells at the back of the eye respond to light with colourful chemical reactions, and convert them into impulses bound for the brain. Like the wiring of a camera’s sensors, the retina’s mechanics are both intricate and sensitive, so studying them in living eyeballs is challenging. Here though, scientists explore similar layers in a retinal organoid – a living model of the retina grown from stem cells, which they can compare with the real thing and make predictions based on their similarity. One technique called 4i (iterative indirect immunofluorescence imaging) scans thin slices of organoid tissue, spotting tell-tale fluorescent stains in cells such as rods (highlighted in red in this cross-section), cones (orange) and retinal ganglion cells (green). Experiments on this cellular 'atlas' may lead to treatments for diseases or insights into how eye development may go awry.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image adapted from work by Philipp Wahle, Giovanna Brancati, Christoph Harmel and Zhisong He, and colleagues
• Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zürich, and Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel, Basel, Switzerland
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-ND-NC 4.0)
• Research published in Nature Biotechnology, May 2023