Salvatore L. Stella, Jr.

Penn State College of Medicine

Salvatore Stella is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neural and Behavioral Sciences at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA. He received his BS in Biology from San Diego State University, followed by graduate training in the Departments of Pharmacology and Ophthalmology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center with Wallace B. Thoreson. He followed this with his post-doctoral training at the University of California, Los Angeles in neuroscience under Nicholas C. Brecha. He first joined the faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, School of Medicine in 2010, and later moved to Penn State Hershey College of Medicine in 2015. His research combines various physiological and imaging methodologies to study retinal and central nervous system function in both health and disease. One of the main overarching themes in the lab focuses on purines and how they alter neurotransmission and visual processing in the retina and brain. Imaging methods in the lab encompass both in vitro through in vivo applications focused on the zebrafish visual system. Techniques used in the lab have centered on activity-dependent dyes for measuring exocytosis, fast calcium imaging and use of heritable genetic Ca2+ indicators as well as ion sensitive dyes for deciphering neuronal function. Other imaging approaches include super resolution techniques both in wide field and confocal microscopy in order to resolve the dynamics and changes of small synaptic structures in both health and disease states within the vertebrate visual system.

Wallace B. Thoreson

University of Nebraska Medical Center

Wallace B. Thoreson is the Gilmore Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Director of Research in the Truhlsen Eye Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, NE. He received his BA from Carleton College, Minnesota followed by graduate training in the Departments of Physiology and Psychology at the University of Minnesota with Dwight Burkhardt and Richard Purple. He continued at the University of Minnesota with post-doctoral training in neuroscience and eye research under Robert F. Miller. He joined the faculty of the University of Nebraska in 1993.  His research combines various imaging and electrophysiological methods to study mechanisms of neurotransmission and early visual processing in the vertebrate retina, particularly at rod and cone ribbon synapses. Electrophysiological techniques in the laboratory include whole cell patch clamp, single channel recordings, and membrane capacitance measurements. Imaging techniques in the laboratory include confocal Ca2+ imaging, total internal reflectance imaging of single vesicle fusion events, and imaging of individual calcium channels labeled with quantum dots.