Dr. Bob Chow

Dr. Bob Chow
Position
ProfessorBiology
Contact
Office: CUN 259cbobchow@uvic.ca250-472-5658website

Areas of research focus

Our lab is interested in the mechanisms that regulate embryonic and postnatal development. Understanding how the different cell types, tissues and organs that make up our body are generated is not only a fundmental problem in science, but is also relevant to human health, as many of the genes and pathways that shape development are involved in human disease.

One of our major areas of focus is vertebrate retinal development, where we have been using molecular and genetic approaches to study how transcriptional regulation and cell signaling pathways regulate cell fate determination and differentiation.

More recently, we have been exploring how post-transcriptional regulation by small non-coding molecules called microRNAs fine-tune the developing nervous system. This work has shed light on diseases such as aniridia which arises from defects in the correct dosage of a gene called PAX6.

Lab homepage

(complete publication list in PubMed)

Ryan BC, Lowe K, Hanson L, Gil T, Braun L, Howard PL, Chow RL. Mapping the Pax6 3' untranslated region microRNA regulatory landscape. BMC Genomics. 2018 Nov 15;19(1):820.

Litke AM, Samuelson S, Delaney KR, Sauvé Y, Chow RL. Investigating the Pathogenicity of VSX1 Missense Mutations and Their Association With Corneal Disease. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2018 Dec 3;59(15):5824-5835.

O'Sullivan C, Christie J, Pienaar M, Gambling J, Nickerson PE, Alford SC, Chow RL, Howard PL. Mutagenesis of ARS2 Domains To Assess Possible Roles in Cell Cycle Progression and MicroRNA and Replication-Dependent Histone mRNA Biogenesis. Mol Cell Biol. 201

Nickerson PE, Ronellenfitch KM, Csuzdi NF, Boyd JD, Howard PL, Delaney KR, Chow RL. Live imaging and analysis of postnatal mouse retinal development. BMC Dev Biol. 2013 Jun 10;13:24.

Star EN, Zhu M, Shi Z, Liu H, Pashmforoush M, Sauve Y, Bruneau BG, Chow RL. Regulation of retinal interneuron subtype identity by the Iroquois homeobox gene Irx6. Development. 2012 Dec;139(24):4644-55.

Shi Z, Trenholm S, Zhu M, Buddingh S, Star EN, Awatramani GB, Chow RL. Vsx1 regulates terminal differentiation of type 7 ON bipolar cells. J Neurosci. 2011 Sep 14;31(37):13118-27.