Dr Joshua Cameron is currently an Assistant Professor at the Western University of Health Sciences College of Optometry in Pomona, CA, USA. Dr. Cameron did his postdoctoral training with Dr. John Dowling in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and was a Research Fellow in the Molecular Bases of Eye Diseases at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, Boston MA.  He received his PhD from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT where he studied the function and disease association of the macular degeneration genes ELOVl4 and HTRA1 with Dr. Kang Zhang (now at the University of San Diego).

Dr Cameron’s research utilizes zebrafish as a model system to study how vitamin A and its derivatives affect both eye development and disease. Retinoic acid and other vitamin A derivatives are essential for normal retinal development and function. Retinoic acid is a potent modulator of presumably several gene targets. Gene expression profiling is being used to discover the gene targets of retinoic acid. Understanding the role of retinoic acid during eye development will provide insight into the mechanisms involved in both retinal development and disease.