Frans Vinberg, PhD
Dr. Vinberg has over 10 years of experience in ocular research, specifically in retinal (patho)physiology. He has developed and commercialized a novel instrument to measure electrical activity of the retinal cells from ex vivo animal or human donor retina samples. He is currently tenured Associate Professor in the department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the Brunson Center for Translational Vision Research, UC Irvine. His research is focused on understanding the mechanisms in the photoreceptor cells that enable vision over a wide range of light intensities from a cloudy moonless night to a sunny day on the powdery slopes. Furthermore, his goal is to elucidate how these mechanisms are affected in the major blinding diseases including Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Retinitis Pigmentosa
In his free time, you can find Frans skiing, swimming or watching Formula 1 races.
Email: frans.vinberg(at)uci.edu
Dr. Mathew joined the Vinberg lab in March 2022 as a postdoctoral research associate. She completed her doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Raghava Varman Thampan at Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, India, where she studied epididymal albumin and its interaction with sperm membrane proteins. She was fascinated by circadian biology after her summer training in the laboratory of Prof. M. K Chandrasekharan at JNCASR India.
During her previous postdoctoral stints, Dr. Mathew studied the effect of circadian rhythm disruption on retinal physiology in mouse models in the laboratory of Dr. Ashay Bhatwadekar at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute, and characterized the circadian and metabolic phenotype of ID2 null mice in the laboratory of Dr. Giles Duffield at the University of Notre Dame.
Currently, Dr. Mathew is interested in investigating the molecular mechanisms involved in retinal remodeling during photoreceptor degeneration.
Zia L’Ecuyer Morison
Neuroscience graduate student.
Lee Sturgis
Neuroscience graduate student.
Lab alumni
Silke Becker, PhD, Postdoc 2017 -2021; Research Assistant Professor 2021 - 2025 - Current position: Assitant Professor, tenure track, University of Pittsburgh
Marianna Mathison, BS, Lab technician and promoted to Lab specialist 2023 - 2025 - Current position: Ophtalmic image analysis at the Moran Reading Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
Jordan Allen, MSc, Undergraduate and Graduate Student 2020 - 2024 - Current position: CTO at Eyescreen, Inc.
Fatima Abbas, PhD, Postdoc 2017 - 2022 - Current position: Researcher at Genentech, San Francisco, CA
Nguyen Pham, BS, Graduate Student - Current position Clinical Application Specialist at BioFire.
Chidi Ahanonu, Undergraduate Student - Current position: MD student at the University of Utah.
Taylor Boyd, Undergraduate Student - Graduated with honors in 2021 from University of Utah, Current position MD student at the University of Utah
Albert Kemp, Undergraduate Student - Graduated from Biomedical Engineering at University of Utah in 2021, Currently studying to become an Optometrist in Arizona College of Optometry.