Staff Profile

Qualifications

BSc, MSc, PhD

Previous Positions

Associate Scientist, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, CA, USA
Visiting Fellow, NIH

Memberships

Society for Neuroscience
British Neuroscience Association

Languages

French
Hebrew
English

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Research Interests

Cellular neurophysiology
Cellular imaging
Neural plasticity
Developmental neuroscience
Retinal neurobiology

Our lab is interested in retinal plasticity in health and disease

We investigate how early neural activity drives the maturation of functional properties in retinal ganglion cells. Both spontaneously generated perinatal activity (taking the form of waves propagating across the retina) and early visual experience play crucial roles in retinal maturation.

We also investigate retinal function in the adult mouse, more particularly trying to understand the function diversity of retinal ganglion cells.

We have a long-standing collaboration with Majlinda Lako and Lyle Armstrong, investigating the use of stem cells and stem cell-derived retinal organoids for photoreceptor repair in outer retinal dystrophies.

We use pharmacogenetics and various in vitro techniques, including calcium imaging, patch clamp recordings, large-scale high-density multielectrode array recordings and immunocytochemistry,

Current funding

BBSRC 19ALERT Mid-Range Equipment Initiative, “Multidimensional large-scale, high-density in vitro recording facility for the investigation of neural systems function”, 2020-2021, £ 569,731 (PI).

MRC project grant, “An iPSC based screen for candidate pain modulating compounds”, 2018-2021, £ 617,000 (co-I)

NC3Rs, Crack It Challenge, “3D hiPSC derived laminated retinal model as a tool for toxicology studies”, 2017-2020, £ 1,100,000 (co-I).

BBSRC project grant, “Retinal ganglion cells: when and how do they contribute to the design and function of the developing visual system?”, 2017-2020, £ 462,600 (PI)

Leverhulme Research Grant, “A novel approach to functional classification of retinal ganglion cells”, 2017-2020, £ 274,437 (PI)

• Chichagova V, Hilgen G, Ghareeb A, Gergiou M, Carter M, Sernagor E, Lako M, Armstrong L. Human iPSC differentiation to retinal organoids in response to IGF1 and BMP4 activation is line‐ and method‐dependent. Stem Cells 2020, 38(2), 195-201.
• Georgiou M, Chichagova V, Hilgen G, Dorgau B, Sernagor E, Armstrong L, Lako M. Room temperature shipment does not affect the biological activity of pluripotent stem cell-derived retinal organoids. PlosOne 2020, 15(6), e0233860.
• Collin J, Zerti D, Queen R, SantoFerreira T, Bauer R, Coxhead J, Hussain R, Steel D, Mellough C, Ader M, Sernagor E, Armstrong L, Lako M. CRX Expression in Pluripotent Stem Cell‐Derived Photoreceptors Marks a Transplantable Subpopulation of Early Cones. Stem Cells (Durham) 2019, 37(5), 609-622.
• Dorgau B, Felemban M, Hilgen G, Kienning N, Zert D, Hunt N, Doherty M, Whifield P, Hallam D, White K, Ding Y, Krasnogor N, Alaama J, Asfour HZ, Sernagor E, Lako M. Decellularised extracellular matrix-derived peptides from neural retina and retinal pigment epithelium enhance the expression of synaptic markers and light responsiveness of human pluripotent stem cell derived retinal organoids. Biomaterials 2019, 199, 63-75.
• Mellough CB, Collin J, Queen R, Hilgen G, Dorgau B, Zerti D, Felemban M, White K, Sernagor E, Lako M. Systematic Comparison of Retinal Organoid Differentiation from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Reveals Stage Specific, Cell Line, and Methodological Differences. STEM CELLS Translational Medicine 2019, 8(7), 694-706.
• Soltan A, Barrett J, Maaskant P, Chaudet L, Al-Atabany W, Akhter M, Armstrong N, Corbett B, Neil M, Sernagor E, Degenaar P. A Head Mounted Device Stimulator for Optogenetic Retinal Prosthesis. Journal of Neural Engineering 2018, 15(6), 065002.
• Buskin A, Zhu L, Chichagova V, Basu B, Mozaffari-Jovin S, Dolan D, Droop A, Collin J, Bronstein V, Mehrotra S, Farkas M, Hilgen G, White K, Pan KT, Treumann A, Hallam D, Bialas K, Chung G, Mellough C, Ding Y, Krasnogor N, Pryzborski S, Zwolinski S, Alharthi S, Al-Aama J, Xu Y, Wheway G, Szymanska K, McKibbin M, Inglehearn CF, Elliott DJ, Lindsay S, Ali R, Steel DH, Armstrong L, Sernagor E, Urlaub H, Pierce E, Luehrmann R, Grellscheid SN, Johnson CA, Lako M. Disrupted alternative splicing for genes implicated in splicing and ciliogenesis causes PRPF31 retinitis pigmentosa. Nature Communications 2018, 9, 4234.
• Buskin A, Zhu L, Chichagova V, Basu B, Mozaffari-Jovin S, Dolan D, Droop A, Collin J, Bronstein R, Mehrotra S, Farkas M, Hilgen G, White K, Pan K-T, Treumann A, Hallam D, Bialas K, Chung G, Mellough C, Ding Y, Krasnogor N, Przyborski S, Zwolinski S, Al-Aama J, Alharthi S, Xu Y, Wheway G, Szymanska K, McKibbin M, Inglehearn CF, Elliott DJ, Lindsay S, Ali RR, Steel DH, Armstrong L, Sernagor E, Urlaub H, Pierce E, Luhrmann R, Grellscheid S-N, Johnson CA, Lako M. Disrupted alternative splicing for genes implicated in splicing and ciliogenesis causes PRPF31 retinitis pigmentosa. Nature Communications 2018, 9, 4234.
• Hallam D, Hilgen G, Dorgau B, Zhu L, Yu M, Bojic S, Hewitt P, Schmitt M, Uteng M, Kustermann S, STEEL D, Nicholds M, Thomas R, Treumann A, Porter A, Sernagor E, Armstrong L, Lako M. Human induced pluripotent stem cells generate light responsive retinal organoids with variable and nutrient dependent efficiency. Stem Cells 2018, 36(10), 1501-1513.
• Jouty J, Hilgen G, Sernagor E, Hennig MH. Non-parametric physiological classification of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse retina. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience 2018, 12, 481.
• Baglietto S, Kepiro IE, Hilgen G, Sernagor E, Murino V, Sona D. Automatic segmentation of neurons from fluorescent microscopy imaging. In: BIOSTEC: International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies. 2017, Porto, Portugal: Springer Verlag.
• Eleftheriou CG, Zimmermann JB, Kjeldsen HD, David-Pur M, Hanein Y, Sernagor E. Carbon nanotube electrodes for retinal implants: A study of structural and functional integration over time. Biomaterials 2017, 112, 108-121.
• Hilgen G, Pirmoradian S, Pamplona D, Kornprobst P, Cessac B, Hennig MH, Sernagor E. Pan-retinal characterisation of Light Responses from Ganglion Cells in the Developing Mouse Retina. Scientific Reports 2017, 7, 42330.
• Baglietto S, Kepiro IE, Hilgen G, Sernagor E, Murino V, Sona D. Segmentation of retinal ganglion cells from fluorescent microscopy imaging. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2017). 2017, Porto, Portugal: SciTePress.
• Hilgen G, Sorbaro M, Pirmoradian S, Muthmann JO, Kepiro IE, Ullo S, Ramirez CJ, Puente Encinas A, Maccione A, Berdondini L, Murino V, Sona D, Cella Zanacchi F, Sernagor E, Hennig MH. Unsupervised Spike Sorting for Large-Scale, High-Density Multielectrode Arrays. Cell Reports 2017, 18(10), 2521-2532.
• Barrett JM, Hilgen G, Sernagor E. Dampening Spontaneous Activity Improves the Light Sensitivity and Spatial Acuity of Optogenetic Retinal Prosthetic Responses. Scientific Reports 2016, 6, 33565.
• Portelli G, Barrett JM, Hilgen G, Masquelier T, Maccione A, DiMarco S, Berdondini L, Kornprobst P, Sernagor E. Rank Order Coding: a Retinal Information Decoding Strategy Revealed by Large-Scale Multielectrode Array Retinal Recordings. eNeuro 2016, 3(3), 1-18.
• Pamplona D, Hilgen G, Pirmoradian S, Hennig MH, Cessac B, Sernagor E, Kornprobst P. A super-resolution approach for receptive fields estimation of neuronal ensembles. BMC Neuroscience 2015, 16(Suppl. 1), 1-2.
• Barrett JM, Degenaar P, Sernagor E. Blockade of pathological retinal ganglion cell hyperactivity improves optogenetically evoked light responses in rd1 mice. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience 2015, 9, 330.
• Mellough CB, Collin J, Khazim M, White K, Sernagor E, Steel DH, Lako M. IGF-1 Signaling Plays an Important Role in the Formation of Three-Dimensional Laminated Neural Retina and Other Ocular Structures From Human Embryonic Stem Cells. Stem Cells 2015, 33(8), 2416-2430.
• Muthmann JO, Amin H, Sernagor E, Maccione A, Panas D, Berdondini L, Bhalla US, Hennig MH. Spike Detection for Large Neural Populations Using High Density Multielectrode Arrays. Frontiers in Neuroinformatics 2015, 9, 28.
• Eglen SJ, Weeks M, Jessop M, Simonotto J, Jackson T, Sernagor E. A data repository and analysis framework for spontaneous neural activity recordings in developing retina. GigaScience 2014, 3, 3.
• Jiang Y, Habibollah S, Tilgner K, Collin J, Barta T, Al-Aama JY, Tesarov L, Hussain R, Trafford AW, Kirkwood G, Sernagor E, Eleftheriou CG, Przyborski S, Stojkovic M, Lako M, Keavney B, Armstrong L. An Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Model of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) Reveals Multiple Expression and Functional Differences in HLHS-Derived Cardiac Myocytes. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2014, 3(4), 416-423.
• Maccione A, Henning MH, Gandolfo M, Muthmann O, van Coppenhagen J, Eglen SJ, Berdondini L, Sernagor E. Following the ontogeny of retinal waves: pan-retinal recordings of population dynamics in the neonatal mouse. Journal of Physiology 2014, 592(7), 1545-1563.
• Mellough CB, Collin J, Sernagor E, Wride NK, Steel DH, Lako M. Lab generated retina: Realizing the dream. Visual Neuroscience 2014, 31(Special issue 4-5), 317-332.
• Bareket L, Waiskopf N, Rand D, Lubin G, David-Pur M, Ben-Dov J, Roy S, Eleftheriou C, Sernagor E, Cheshnovsky O, Banin U, Hanein Y. Semiconductor Nanorod-Carbon Nanotube Biomimetic Films for Wire-Free Photostimulation of Blind Retinas. Nano Letters 2014, 14(11), 6685-6692.
• Sernagor E, Williams D. Treatment strategies for retinal dystrophies. Visual Neuroscience 2014, 31(4-5), 287-288.
• Maccione A, Simi A, Nieus T, Gandolfo M, Imfeld K, Ferrea E, Sernagor E, Berdondini L. Sensing and actuating electrophysiological activity on brain tissue and neuronal cultures with a high-density CMOS-MEA. In: 2013 Transducers and Eurosensors XXVII: The 17th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems, TRANSDUCERS and EUROSENSORS 2013. 2013, Barcelona, Spain: IEEE.
• Mellough CB, Sernagor E, Moreno-Gimeno I, Steel DH, Lako M. Efficient Stage-Specific Differentiation of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Toward Retinal Photoreceptor Cells. Stem Cells 2012, 30(4), 673-686.
• Chabrol F, Eglen SJ, Sernagor E. GABAergic control of retinal ganglion cell dendritic development. Neuroscience 2012, 227, 30-43.
• Ben-Ari Y, Woodin MA, Sernagor E, Cancedda L, Vinay L, Rivera C, Legendre P, Luhmann H, Bordey A, Wenner P, Fukuda A, van den Pol A, Gaiarsa JL, Cherubini E. Refuting the challenges of the developmental shift of polarity of GABA actions: GABA more exciting than ever!. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience 2012, 6(1), 35.
• Hennig MH, Grady J, van Coppenhagen J, Sernagor E. Age-dependent homeostatic plasticity of GABAergic signaling in developing retinal networks. Journal of Neuroscience 2011, 31(34), 12159-12164.
• Blau A, Murr A, Wolff S, Sernagor E, Medini P, Iurilli G, Ziegler C, Benfenati F. Flexible, all-polymer microelectrode arrays for the capture of cardiac and neuronal signals. Biomaterials 2011, 32(7), 1778-1786.
• Di Cristo G, Pizzorusso T, Cancedda L, Sernagor E. GABAergic Circuit Development and Its Implication for CNS Disorders. Neural Plasticity 2011, 2011, Article ID 623705.
• Somerville J, Stuart L, Sernagor E, Borisyuk R. iRaster: A novel information visualization tool to explore spatiotemporal patterns in multiple spike trains. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 2010, 194(1), 158-171.
• Shoval A, Adams C, David-Pur M, Shein M, Hanein Y, Sernagor E. Carbon nanotube electrodes for effective interfacing with retinal tissue. Frontiers in Neuroengineering 2009, 2, 4.
• Sernagor E, Young C, Eglen SJ. Developmental modulation of retinal wave dynamics: Shedding light on the GABA saga. Journal of Neuroscience 2003, 23(20), 7621-7629.
• Sernagor E, Eglen SJ, Wong ROL. Development of retinal ganglion cell structure and function. Progress in Retinal and Eye Research 2001, 20(2), 139-174.
• Sernagor E, Mehta V. The role of early neural activity in the maturation of turtle retinal function. Journal of Anatomy 2001, 199(4), 375-383.
• Sernagor E, Eglen SJ, O'Donovan MJ. Differential effects of acetylcholine and glutamate blockade on the spatiotemporal dynamics of retinal waves. European Journal of Neuroscience 2000, 20(2), RC56.
• Grzywacz NM, Sernagor E. Spontaneous activity in developing turtle retinal ganglion cells: Statistical analysis. Visual Neuroscience 2000, 17(2), 229-241.
• Sernagor E, Grzywacz NM. Spontaneous activity in developing turtle retinal ganglion cells: Pharmacological studies. Journal of Neuroscience 1999, 19(10), 3874-3887.
• E. Sernagor and N. M. Grzywacz. Influence of spontaneous activity and visual experience on developing retinal receptive fields. Current Biology 1996, 6, 1503-1508.
• Sernagor E, Grzywacz NM. Emergence of complex receptive field properties of ganglion cells in the developing turtle retina. J Neurophysiol 1995, 73, 1355-1364.
• Sernagor E, Chub N, Ritter A, O'Donovan MJ. Pharmacological characterization of the rhythmic synaptic drive onto lumbosacral motoneurons in the chick embryo spinal cord. Journal of Neuroscience 1995, 15, 7452-64.
• O'Donovan M, Sernagor E, Sholomenko G, Ho S, Antal M, Yee W. Development of spinal motor networks in the chick embryo. J Exp Zool 1992, 261, 261-73.
• Sernagor E, O'Donovan MJ. Whole-cell patch clamp recordings from rhythmically active motoneurons in the isolated spinal cord of the chick embryo. Neurosci Lett 1991, 128, 211-6.
• Benveniste M, Mienville JM, Sernagor E, Mayer ML. Concentration-jump experiments with NMDA antagonists in mouse cultured hippocampal neurons. J Neurophysiol 1990, 63, 1373-84.
• Sernagor E, Kuhn D, Vyklicky L Jr, Mayer ML. Open channel block of NMDA receptor responses evoked by tricyclic antidepressants. Neuron 1989, 2, 1221-7.
• Sernagor E, Yarom Y, Werman R. Sodium-dependent regenerative responses in dendrites of axotomized motoneurons in the cat. PNAS 1986, 83, 7966-70.