Bin Lin ( 林彬 )
Assistant Professor
M.Sc. (USTC), Ph.D.(Sydney)

Department of Anatomy
1/F. Laboratory Block
Faculty of Medicine Building
21 Sassoon Road, Hong Kong

Anatomy Office: (852) 2819-9226 (voice)
Anatomy Office: (852) 2817-0857 (fax)

E-mail: blin@hku.hk

Jump to: Background / Research / Publications / Collaborations

Background

I was trained in the Department of Physiology at the University of Sydney where I obtained my PhD under Drs. Paul Martin and Ulrike Grünert. I then moved to Harvard Medical School, where I was a Research Associate in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), associated with the laboratory of Dr. Richard Masland, who is a recipient of 2010 ARVO Proctor Medal, and an Instructor before taking up my present position in Hong Kong.

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Research

The short-term goal of my research is to elucidate the circuit alternations and functional consequences in the inner retina in disease conditions, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP), in more detail on the single-cell level. Although loss of rod function is an inconvenience for patients with these conditions, loss of cone-mediated photopic vision significantly decreases quality of their life. Cone pathways in the inner retina represent the biological platform for repair strategies designed to cure retinal degeneration. Therefore, it is important to elucidate the factors that influence the survival of these neurons and to dissect cellular mechanisms by which these changes occur. This is of particular importance in early stages of the disease, when pathological changes may still be reversible.

The long-term goal is to develop a photoreplacement therapy that could be of use to human patients who are blind or severely impaired due to degeneration of their photoreceptor cells. As a first step towards that direction, I will target the light sensitive protein melanopsin to the surviving inner retinal neurons for restoring visual responses in an animal model of retinal degeneration.

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Publications

1. Contini M, Lin B, Kobayashi K, Okano H, Masland RH and Raviola E. Synaptic input of ON bipolar cells onto retinal dopaminergic neurons J Comp Neurol 2009: In press.

2. Lin B, Masland RH and Strettoi E. Remodeling of cone photoreceptor cells after rod degeneration in rd mice. Exp Eye Res 2009: 88: 589-599.

3. Lin B, Koizumi A, Tanaka N, Panda S and Masland RH. Restoration of visual function in retinal degeneration mice by ectopic expression of melanopsin. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2008; 105:16009-16014

4. Lin B, Masland RH. Systematic analysis of wide-field amacrine cells in the mouse retina. J Comp Neurol 2006; 499:797-809.

5. Lin B, Masland RH. Synaptic contacts between an identified type of ON cone bipolar cell and ganglion cells in the mouse retina. Eur J Neurosci 2005; 21:1257-1270.       

6. Lin B, Jakobs TC and Masland RH. Different functional types of bipolar cells use different gap junctional proteins. J Neurosci 2005; 25:6696-6701.                       

7. Lin B, Wang SW, Masland RH. Retinal ganglion cell type, size and spacing can be specified independent of homotypic dendritic contacts. Neuron 2004; 43:475-485.

8. Grünert U, Lin B, Martin PR. Glutamate receptors at bipolar synapses in the inner plexiform layer of primate retina: light microscopic analysis. J Comp Neurol 2003; 466:13-147.

9. Lin B, Martin PR, Grünert U. Expression and distribution of ionotropic glutamate receptor subunits on parasol ganglion cells in the primate retina. Vis Neurosci 2002; 19: 453-465.

10. Lin B, Martin PR, Solomon SG, Grünert U. Distribution of glycine receptor subunits on primate retinal ganglion cell: a quantitative analysis. Eur J Neurosci 2000; 12:4155-4170.

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