Retina Structure, Function, and Genetics

Dr. Pardue received her B.S. in Zoology from the University of Wyoming and her doctorate in Vision Science and Biology at the University of Waterloo. Her post-doctorate training was completed at Loyola School of Medicine and Hines VA Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Pardue moved to Atlanta in 2000 to a joint position at the Atlanta VA Medical Center and Emory University Department of Ophthalmology. She moved her academic appointment to Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2015. She became an ARVO Silver Fellow in 2016 and a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2017. Dr. Pardue’s research interests are focused on developing treatments for people with vision loss. Her experience as a VA Research Scientist has given her an appreciation for the importance of translational research and the need to rapidly move treatments from the benchtop to the bedside. She is currently pursuing both pre-clinical and clinical studies to move treatments for retinal disease into the clinic. Her research has been continuously funded through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), NIH, and private companies. Dr. Pardue is a Research Career Scientist at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, and a Professor in Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. Dr. Pardue has served in several leadership roles at the Atlanta VA. She currently serves as the Chair of the Atlanta VA Research and Development Committee and is Associate Director of the Atlanta VA Center for Visual and Neurocognitive Rehabilitation. Her h index=36, with 101 documents, and 3868 citations. Among her most contributed research topics 2017-2021 were: Myopia, Defocus, Diabetic Retinopathy, Retina, Low Vision, and Vision Disorders.

• 1. Epidemiology of retinal and visual dysfunction2. Retinal development3. Retinal anatomy4. The human fovea5. Retinal cell types: Retinal pigment epithelium6. Retinal cell types: Rod and cone photoreceptors7. Retinal cell types: Inner retinal cells (bipolar, amacrine, horizontal cells)8. Retinal cell types: Retinal ganglion cells9. Retinal cell types: Atypical opsins10. Vasculature: Retinal vessels11. Vasculature: Choroid Section B: Function12. Neurotransmitters and Retinal circuits13. Phototransduction14. Ganglion cell physiology (ON/OFF pathways)15. Melanopsin ganglion cells16. Higher order visual processing17. Color vision Section C: Genetics Genetics