About Us » FFB Funded Researchers
Stephanie Hagstrom, Ph.D.
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Stephanie Hagstrom, Ph.D., joined the Cleveland Clinic in November of 2000 as Assistant Staff in the Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute following a junior faculty position as Instructor of Ophthalmology, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Departments of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute and Ophthalmology in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. She also holds a faculty position in the Department of Chemistry at Cleveland State University. Dr. Hagstrom received a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate in molecular biology from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Her dissertation work involved characterizing cone pigment genes expressed in the human retina. She pursued postdoctoral fellowship training in the molecular genetics of human retinal degenerations at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School under the auspices of Dr. Thaddeus Dryja, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Prior to joining the Cole Eye Institute, she was a junior faculty member in the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. The major focus of her research concerns genetic studies of inherited retinal degenerations that cause blindness such as age-related macular degeneration (AM.D.), retinitis pigmentosa (RP), glaucoma and Leber Congenial Amarosis (LCA). Her interest in this field began when she studied color vision during her doctoral work, and came to appreciate the extent to which vision loss can affect patients. Her work focuses on using the candidate gene approach combined with high-throughput molecular genetics to identify mutations and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with disease. Following the identification of a disease-causing gene, the focus of her laboratory research is to define the molecular and pathologic mechanism responsible for the retinal degeneration. As a fellow, Dr. Hagstrom identified a novel gene of unknown function, named TULP1, to cause an early-onset form of RP. Functional studies in her laboratory over the past few years on the TULP1 gene product suggest that it is involved in the polarized transport of proteins within photoreceptor cells of the retina. This pathway is not well understood in photoreceptors but is essential for their survival, as the outer segment compartment of the cell undergoes renewal about every 10 days requiring active biosynthesis and efficient transport of all phototransduction proteins. She has served as a reviewer for several scientific journals and grant review panels, helped train several Ophthalmology residents, basic science research fellows, and local high school students, and served on both Cleveland Clinic and community wide committees. |
