The National Eye Institute funded P30 Vision Research Center Core Grant (P30EY022589) provides critical support to the UCSD vision research community that are usually not available to individual researchers. The four cores described below provide access to biostatistical, computational, and technical expertise as well as sophisticated imaging and tissue processing equipment that will enhance the productivity and efficiency of your work.

• PI: Linda Zangwill VisCoreDirector@health.ucsd.edu


• Listserve: Visionresearchinvestigators-l@ucsd.edu


• Cite Funding: P30EY022589


• Email All: Module Directors & Staff

P30 Vision Research Center Core grant provides vision research resources and services organized in the following four cores:

1. Biostatistics Core:

This core provides statistical analyses and consultation to investigators. A full-time senior biostatistician is available to advise on analysis strategies and implement sophisticated statistical techniques.

• Directors: Linda Zangwill PhD + Sonia Jain, PhD


• Location: HGC 177


• Resources: Statistical Consulting and Analysis


• Senior Statistician: Evan Walker, MS


• Contact: Evan Walker, MS


• Email: VisCoreBiostat@health.ucsd.edu

2. Animal Structure and Function Core:

This core offers Spectralis (Heidelberg Engineering) spectral domain optical coherence tomograph and Micron III and Micron IV instruments, as well as the VERIS™ multifocal electrophysiological system (Electro-Diagnostic Imaging) and a full-time animal technician to assist with ocular structural imaging and functional imaging (electrophysiology) in animals. The use of ocular imaging methods that enable longitudinal observations in a living animal can greatly reduce the need to sacrifice animals at different time points in an experiment. The core will facilitate this process and centralize the expertise, fluorescence imaging, and retinal function testing equipment to allow our researchers to maximize their time and resources.

• Directors: Dirk-Uwe Bartsch, PhD + Derek Welsbie, MD, PhD


• Location: BSB 3007


• Resources: Micron IV Rodent Imaging System, Micron III Rodent Imaging System, Spectralis SD-OCT with FA/ICGA, PacScan 300 A-scan ultrasound imaging, Gas Anesthesia, IOP measurement, 3D printing


• Animal Technician: John Carroll


• Email: jcarroll@health.ucsd.edu


• Google Calendar: Image Core Lab

3. Computational Ophthalmology Core:

The Computational Ophthalmology core provides high-performance computing resources and state-of-the-art custom computer programming to support UCSD vision investigators’ cellular, animal, and human vision and genomics research. The powerful CPU and GPU computational condo clusters (Triton Shared Computational Cluster (TSCC)) managed by the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and custom software tools provided by this core facilitate analysis of these large datasets. The Computational Ophthalmology core also supports a computer programmer with image analysis and deep learning programming expertise to support computational analyses of both basic science and clinical vision research projects. In addition, institutional software licenses (FilemakerPro, Github, FreezerPro) are provided.

For investigators interested in leveraging data from electronic health records (EHRs), the core also supports a computational data scientist who is Epic Clarity-certified and can conduct queries and data extraction from the UCSD Clinical Data Warehouse. The core is also engaged in collaborations with UCSD Enterprise IT regarding development of research data management infrastructure using Amazon Web Services.

• Directors: Linda Zangwill, PhD and Sally L. Baxter, MD, MSc


• Programmer: Akram Belghith, PhD


• Data Scientist: Bharanidharan Radha Saseendrakumar, MS


• Location: SEI + HGC


• Resources: Custom Programming: Image Analysis, Segmentation, Pattern Recognition & Feature Detection, Deep Learning; EHR data extraction


• Software: Matlab, FileMaker Pro, GitHub & FreezerPro licenses


• Hardware: CPU & GPU cluster, File server for file sharing, Offsite data backup


• Email: viscorecompute@health.ucsd.edu or Linda Zangwill or Sally Baxter


• Web Info & Scheduling: https://ishare.ucsd.edu/sites/VisCoreCompute/vcc/SitePages/Home.aspx

4. Tissue Processing and Histology Core:

This core provides rapid characterization of eye tissues with respect to histology, immunohistochemistry, light microscopy and confocal microscopy by supporting a technician who is familiar with ocular anatomy and techniques required to properly process ocular tissues. Specific instrumentation available through this core includes a Cryostat, Microtome HM355S and HistoStar Embedding station.

• Directors: Radha Ayyagari, PhD + Daniel Ju, PhD


• Location: SEC 210


• Lab Manager: Pooja Biswas


• Email: viscoretissue@health.ucsd.edu or Pooja Biswas