Alecia K. Gross, PhD, is researching protein-mediated retinal degenerations and molecular mechanisms of photoreceptor membrane biogenesis—in particular, the necessary molecular interactions for healthy photoreceptor disk membranes to form.

In her lab, Dr. Gross and her graduate students investigate the cellular and molecular biological mechanisms of severe photoreceptor degenerative disorders such as retinitis pigmentosa and the ciliopathy diseases Meckel Gruber Syndrome and Bardet-Biedl Syndrome.

They have discovered and uncovered key ciliary proteins and mechanisms that are involved in protein trafficking and disk formation in the sensory cilium of photoreceptors. They use transgenic tadpoles, conditional and congenital knock-in and knock-out mice and polarized tissue culture cells as our model systems to carry out their studies.