Affiliation: Cantonal Hospital Aarau and University of Bern

Dr. Markus Tschopp is chief of service at the Department of Ophthalmology, Cantonal Hospital Aarau, and a scientist at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Zurich in 2006.  He also did his master of science on visual system of zebrafish at the University of Zurich. In addition to his service as an M.D., he is working on retinal regeneration using adult zebrafish as a model organism. He was always fascinated that some animals can regenerate large parts of the body - including complex structures as the retina - and others cannot. He contributed to the retinal regeneration field with key publications regarding TGF beta signaling. In 2016, Dr. Markus Tschopp was granted a fund that helped him and Dr. Cavit Agca to initiate and perform drug screens in order to elucidate the dedifferentiation and regeneration capacity of mammalian Muller glia cells. Recently, he performed species comparisons of Muller glia and microglia between zebrafish and mouse to better understand the mechanisms that underlie retinal regeneration.