Kevin is a 4th year MCB PhD student in the Feller lab. He received his BS in Biology from UC San Diego and did 2 years of graduate school there before moving up to Berkeley. He studies how spontaneous activity in the retina is produced by recording from ‘pacemaker’ cells. This spontaneous activity, termed ‘retinal waves’, is important for the wiring up of the retina to brain during development. In addition to sitting at a microscope, Kevin likes to run and brewhis own beer.
Left: Starburst amacrine cells (pictured with recording electrode) in the retina have pacemaker like properties during development.
Right: A current clamp recording from a starburst amacrine cell shows calcium action potentials elicited by synaptic activity followed by slow afterhyperpolarizations lasting 10s of seconds