Thomas J Wubben, MD, PhD

Dr. Wubben is a vitreoretinal surgeon who provides medical and surgical care to adult and pediatric patients with a multitude of retinal degenerative diseases in the clinic and performs subretinal gene therapy as part of the inherited retinal disease group at University of Michigan. As a clinician-scientist, Dr. Wubben’s ultimate goal is to identify a viable human therapy that reduces morbidity and improves vision in those affected by retinal disorders.

The Wubben laboratory focuses on the intersection of retinal cell metabolism and retinal disease. Understanding the metabolic pathways that support retinal cell function and survival and how these pathways are rewired in certain disease states is expected to provide a framework for developing novel therapeutic paradigms to prevent vision loss in those afflicted with retinal disease. The laboratory utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach with techniques in chemical biology, biochemistry, cell and molecular biology and mass spectrometry-based metabolomics to unravel the metabolic pathways crucial to the function and survival of photoreceptors and the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) in multiple experimental systems. These systems include rodent and rabbit models of macular degeneration, inherited retinal disease, retinal detachment, and proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), as well as RPE cell culture models of macular degeneration and PVR. The insight obtained from such studies is employed to design targeted small molecule therapeutics and gene therapies.