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USC article: "With an Eye Towards Future Understanding"When Cheryl Craft, Ph.D., joined USC in the summer of 1994,
she brought with her an intense fascination with out internal biological or
circadian clock, which plays an important role in regulating much of our lives. “With all the advances that have recently occurred, in
coming years I think we will have therapeutic agents to help people synchronize
their internal clocks to the proper time, which will have implications for space
explorers, people who work the night shift or suffer from jet lag or insomnia,
even Alzheimer’s patents,” she says, her brown eyes sparkling. Much may be learned by studying the complex
inter-relationships between the brain’s hypothalamus, the pineal gland, and
the eyes. During her graduate
student days in anatomy and neuroscience at the University of Texas Health
Science Center, San Antonio, Craft studied evolutionary changes to the pineal
gland. She learned, for example,
that lizards have a light-responsive “third eye” under the skin in their
skulls, which is the evolutionary equivalent of humans’ bone-encased,
hormone-secreting pineal gland. The
pineal may work in concert with our eyes. Craft,
now the Mary D. Allen Professor for Vision Research at the Doheny Eye Institute
on USC’s Health Sciences Campus and Department Chair of Cell and Neurobiology
at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, has used molecular and cellular biology
techniques to show that the pineal and retina share in the expression of a
number of genes previously thought to be unique for vision. The pineal is the major source of melatonin, a hormone that
has received much attention in the popular press in recent years.
Daylight and darkness affect the pineal gland’s secretion of melatonin,
thus the gland functions as a kind of internal timepiece.
Deeper within the brain, hormonal and metabolic changes affected by light
and dark inputs appear to influence when we feel sad, sleepy, or energized. “It seems reasonable that the circadian clock, acting
through signals from the eye and the pineal gland, will turn out to be a
powerful instrument to which the stability of our mental health may be
synchronized,” she explains. Formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the National Eye
Institute and now the Director of the Mary D. Allen Laboratories for Vision
Research at the Doheny Eye Institute, Craft also is involved in using mouse
models to study genetic forms of blindness When asked if she could have the answer to one research
question, she replies, “To know how to integrate the computational,
theoretical, and bioengineering information to give vision to the millions of
blind people around the world—the way the cochlear implant has recently given
hearing to the deaf. “There’s so much I want to do and so many research
areas I’m interested in, but physically and mentally it’s impossible to do
it all. Each little answer we get
in science builds on such a huge base of scientific knowledge.
You might work months and not get anything, then suddenly you get a
breakthrough that adds to answering the bigger scientific puzzle.” Given her passion for research, it’s somewhat surprising
that her greatest satisfaction is derived from another source.
“Even though I love my research, I get the wonderful satisfaction from
our students, especially our Bravo High School students, our B.A./M.D. students
who I mentor, and our medical students. The
future of science and medicine is in our hands to pass on to students at the
bench and in the classroom,” she says. “All of this makes me realize what a wonderful place USC is,” she says, smiling broadly. “There’s such a warm sense of family among the clinicians, students, and faculty here—and it’s a feeling you don’t get everywhere.
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