By Dana Vaughan, assistant professor, Department of Biology/Microbiology

UW Oshkosh sophomore Angela Rodriguez will be winging her way to an international eye research meeting this May, having won a prestigious travel grant to present her vision research project.
 
An Academic Excellence Scholar interested in a health career, Rodriguez began her freshman year in fall 2003, with a visit to Dana Vaughan’s laboratory to learn about undergraduate research opportunities. During her freshman year, Rodriguez completed part of a large, interdisciplinary project involving researchers at UW Oshkosh, the Cleveland Clinic and Saint Louis University. For the project, a lab rat model was used to explore treatment options for a blinding syndrome of birth defects. That work has been presented at numerous meetings, in the United States and abroad, and is being submitted for publication by the chief scientist at Saint Louis University.

Last fall, Rodriguez began a new project, modeling human retinal disease using the familiar, 13-lined ground squirrel. Compared with the rat, the squirrel’s retina more closely resembles the human’s. On May 1, she’ll join 10,000 other scientists at the biggest vision research meeting of the year—the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology—and will present her newest data. 
 
Her new project is a collaboration between Vaughan and toxicologist Janis Eells of UW Milwaukee. In 2003, using a rat model, Eells published findings that showed how a simple infrared light treatment could reverse the toxic effects of methanol (wood alcohol) on the retina. Ingestion of a small amount of methanol results in blindness and even death. Accidental ingestion occurs approximately 5,000 times annually in the United States. A toddler may swallow cleaning fluid, a well may be contaminated, or the wrong alcohol could be added to a beverage. Early symptoms are vague, so the intensive care unit attention required to save the victim’s vision usually is not started early enough.
 
Vaughan contacted Eells to suggest trying the infrared treatment on the ground squirrel model, since it better approximates the most important part of the human retina—the macula. Rodriguez took the project and completed its first phase this fall, showing that methanol intoxication results in the same degenerative changes found in the human retina. The second phase, infrared light treatment, will begin this summer, funded in part by Eells’ UW System Distinguished Professor Award.