E-mail:
Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine
B.S., The University of New Orleans, 2001
Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine, 2007
Postdoc, Baylor College of Medicine, 2012
Molecular mechanisms of retinogenesis
Retinogenesis requires a tightly controlled balance of retinal progenitor cell (RPC) proliferation and differentiation, and the deregulation of this mechanism often results in profound neuro-developmental disorders or cancer. Despite the clear biological and clinical importance, the full complement of molecular players involved is still unknown.
The lab’s long term goals are to elucidate the transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms regulating RPC proliferation and differentiation, leading to new therapeutic interventions to restore sight and treat cancers such as retinoblastoma. Toward that end, projects aimed at characterizing novel mouse mutants suffering from defects in retinogenesis are ongoing.
In the lab, we employ a multi-disciplinary approach utilizing genetic loss- and gain-of-function experiments, molecular biology and live retinal confocal microscopy.
Selected Publications
Poché RA, Kwan KM, Raven MA, Furuta Y, Reese BE, Behringer RR (2007) Lim1 is essential for the correct laminar positioning of retinal horizontal cells. Journal of Neuroscience 27:14099-14107.
Poché RA, Raven MA, Kwan KM, Furuta Y, Behringer RR, Reese BE (2008) Somal positioning and dendritic growth of horizontal cells are regulated by interactions with homotypic neighbors. European Journal of Neuroscience 27:1607-1614.
Poché RA, Furuta Y, Chaboissier MC, Schedl A, Behringer RR (2008) Sox9 is expressed in mouse multipotent retinal progenitor cells and functions in Müller glial cell development. Journal of Comparative Neurology 510:237-250.
Poché RA, Larina IV, Scott ML, Saik JE, West JL, Dickinson ME (2009) The Flk1-myr::mCherry mouse as a useful reporter to characterize multiple aspects of ocular blood vessel development and disease. Developmental Dynamics 238:2318-2326.
Poché RA, Reese BE (2009) Retinal horizontal cells: challenging paradigms of neural development and cancer biology. Development 136:2141-2151.
Moon JJ, Saik JE, Poché RA, Leslie-Barbick JE, Lee SH, Smith AA, Dickinson ME, West JL (2010) Biomimetic hydrogels with pro-angiogenic properties. Biomaterials 31:3840-3847.
Gould DJ, Vadakkan TJ, Poché RA, Dickinson ME (2011) Multifractal and lacunarity analysis of microvascular morphology and remodeling. Microcirculation 18:136-151.
Whitney IE, Raven MA, Ciobanu DC, Poché RA, Ding Q, Elshatory Y, Gan L, Williams RW, Reese BE (2011) Genetic modulation of horizontal cell number in the mouse retina. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 7:9697-9702.
Poché RA, Sharma R, Garcia MD, Wada AM, Nolte MJ, Udan RS, Paik JH, DePinho RA, Bartlett JD, Dickinson ME (2012) Transcription factor FoxO1 is essential for enamel biomineralization. PLOS One 7:e30357.
Culver JC, Hoffmann JC, Poché RA, Slater JH, West JL, Dickinson ME (2012) Three-dimensional biomimetic patterning in hydrogels to guide cellular organization. Advanced Materials 24:2344-2348.
Keeley PW, Luna G, Fariss RN, Skyles KA, Madsen NR, Raven MA, Poché RA, Swindell EC, Jamrich M, Oh EC, Swaroop A, Fisher SK, Reese BE (2013) Development and plasticity of outer retinal circuitry following genetic removal of horizontal cells. Journal of Neuroscience 33:17847-17862.
Poché RA, Hsu CW, McElwee ML, Burns, AR, Dickinson ME (2015) Macrophages engulf endothelial cell membrane particles preceding pupillary membrane capillary regression. Developmental Biology 403:30-42.
Contact Information
Ross Poché, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
One Baylor Plaza, T440 (Lab) T424 (Office)
Houston, Texas 77030
Lab website
Tel: (832) 788-5835
Secondary: (713) 798-1203
E-mail: