Katelyn Sondereker
Title: IB PhD Student
Dept/Program: Biology
Email: kbs28@zips.uakron.edu
Biography
From the first year of my undergraduate career, I have had a profound curiosity about physiology and how different components interact to produce a functioning organism. I pursued this interest by graduating from The University of Akron with a B.S. in Biology, with minors in Chemistry and Spanish. I took classes from Human Anatomy to Physics to Techniques in Neuroscience, and I came to the realization that I wanted a career in which I could continue to learn about the scientific world around me.
I became extremely interested in retinal research when I took undergraduate neuroscience classes with my advisor, Dr. Jordan Renna in the Department of Biology. My desire to continue retinal research while interacting with people in other disciplines led me to pursue my Ph.D. in Integrated Bioscience. My current research involves investigation into the development of melanopsin ganglion cells, a specific type of ganglion cell that acts as a third autonomous photoreceptor. Because of the expression of the protein melanopsin, these cells can intrinsically respond to light without the input of rods and cones. Not only do we study the development of these specialized cells, we also study how their development affects the development of other retinal cell types and parts of the visual system. These cells were only discovered very recently, making this an exciting branch of retinal research.
For my project, I have conducted a morphological analysis of biplexiform melanopsin ganglion cells. These cells are unique because they have dendrites that run along the outer plexiform layer (OPL) in close apposition with cone photoreceptor axon terminals. These dendrites are unusual because they are not typically found in this layer of the retina and have thus been termed outer retinal dendrites (ORDs, pictured right). The presence of these ORDs in the OPL is significant because it suggests the possibility of a circuit between a photoreceptor and a ganglion cell, which has never before been documented. In the next few years, I hope to continue investigating the morphology and they physiology of this novel potential circuit.
Education
B.Sc. in Biology; University of Akron