Deepak Lamba, PhD
Assoc Prof In Res-HCOMP
Ophthalmology
School of Medicine

We have developed in vitro methodologies for generating all the various retinal cell types, including retinal neurons and retinal pigment epithelium cells, from both human and mouse embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. I was one of the first to publish directed retinal differentiation protocols in the US and the use of these cells for regenerative medicine. In October 2011, I established my own lab at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA. The research is primarily focused on (1) exploring the potential and challenges in retinal repair and (2) using in vivo models and stem-cell based in vitro model systems to understand various retinal degenerations. In 2018, my lab moved to UCSF’s Department of Ophthalmology and housed at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research to focus on novel stem cell-based retinal therapies and bringing them closer to the clinic.

• Human iPSC-derived photoreceptor transplantation in the cone dominant 13-lined ground squirrel.
  Stem cell reports 2024 Yu CT, Kandoi S, Periasamy R, Reddy LVK, Follett HM, Summerfelt P, Martinez C, Guillaume C, Bowie O, Connor TB, Lipinski DM, Allen KP, Merriman DK, Carroll J, Lamba DA
• Disease modeling and pharmacological rescue of autosomal dominant Retinitis Pigmentosa associated with RHO copy number variation.
  medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences 2023 Kandoi S, Martinez C, Chen KX, Reddy LVK, Mehine M, Mansfield BC, Duncan JL, Lamba DA
• Factors Affecting Stem Cell-Based Regenerative Approaches in Retinal Degeneration.
  Annual review of vision science 2023 Patel SH, Lamba DA
• Advancements in pre-clinical development of gene editing-based therapies to treat inherited retinal diseases.
  Vision research 2023 Chirco KR, Martinez C, Lamba DA
• The importance of unambiguous cell origin determination in neuronal repopulation studies.
  iScience 2023 Johnson TV, Calkins DJ, Fortune B, Goldberg JL, La Torre A, Lamba DA, Meyer JS, Reh TA, Wallace VA, Zack DJ, Baranov P
• Retinal Organoids: A Human Model System for Development, Diseases, and Therapies.
  Advances in experimental medicine and biology 2023 Kandoi S, Lamba DA
• Characterization of Retinal Development in 13-Lined Ground Squirrels.
  Translational vision science & technology 2022 Kandoi S, Martinez C, Merriman DK, Lamba DA
• Timed Notch Inhibition Drives Photoreceptor Fate Specification in Human Retinal Organoids.
  Investigative ophthalmology & visual science 2022 Chew SH, Martinez C, Chirco KR, Kandoi S, Lamba DA
• Biophysical, Molecular and Proteomic Profiling of Human Retinal Organoid-Derived Exosomes.
  Pharmaceutical research 2022 Arthur P, Kandoi S, Sun L, Kalvala A, Kutlehria S, Bhattacharya S, Kulkarni T, Nimma R, Li Y, Lamba DA, Singh M
• An enhancer located in a Pde6c intron drives transient expression in the cone photoreceptors of developing mouse and human retinas.
  Developmental biology 2022 Bachu VS, Kandoi S, Park KU, Kaufman ML, Schwanke M, Lamba DA, Brzezinski JA
• Dpp/TGFβ-superfamily play a dual conserved role in mediating the damage response in the retina.
  PloS one 2021 Kramer J, Neves J, Koniikusic M, Jasper H, Lamba DA
• Allele-specific gene editing to rescue dominant CRX-associated LCA7 phenotypes in a retinal organoid model.
  Stem cell reports 2021 Chirco KR, Chew S, Moore AT, Duncan JL, Lamba DA
• MANF delivery improves retinal homeostasis and cell replacement therapies in ageing mice.
  Experimental gerontology 2020 Neves J, Chirco KR, Cedron-Craft W, Chew S, Zhu J, Jasper H, Lamba DA
• 1.05 Diseases and Repair Approaches in Vision.
  2020 Deepak A. Lamba, Thomas A. Reh
• Proteome and Secretome Dynamics of Human Retinal Pigment Epithelium in Response to Reactive Oxygen Species.
  Scientific reports 2019 Meyer JG, Garcia TY, Schilling B, Gibson BW, Lamba DA
• Transcriptional profiling of murine retinas undergoing semi-synchronous cone photoreceptor differentiation.
  Developmental biology 2019 Kaufman ML, Park KU, Goodson NB, Chew S, Bersie S, Jones KL, Lamba DA, Brzezinski JA
• MANF regulates metabolic and immune homeostasis in ageing and protects against liver damage.
  Nature metabolism 2019 Sousa-Victor P, Neves J, Cedron-Craft W, Ventura PB, Liao CY, Riley RR, Soifer I, van Bruggen N, Kolumam GA, Villeda SA, Lamba DA, Jasper H
• Immunological Considerations for Retinal Stem Cell Therapy.
  Advances in experimental medicine and biology 2019 Kramer J, Chirco KR, Lamba DA
• Small Molecule-Based Retinal Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.
  Bio-protocol 2018 Zhu J, Lamba DA
• Illustrating the potency of current Good Manufacturing Practice-compliant induced pluripotent stem cell lines as a source of multiple cell lineages using standardized protocols.
  Cytotherapy 2018 Rao MS, Pei Y, Garcia TY, Chew S, Kasai T, Hisai T, Taniguchi H, Takebe T, Lamba DA, Zeng X
• Generation of Transplantable Retinal Photoreceptors from a Current Good Manufacturing Practice-Manufactured Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Line.
  Stem cells translational medicine 2017 Zhu J, Reynolds J, Garcia T, Cifuentes H, Chew S, Zeng X, Lamba DA
• Transplantation of Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Cells into the Subretinal Space of a Non-Human Primate.
  Translational vision science & technology 2017 Chao JR, Lamba DA, Klesert TR, Torre A, Hoshino A, Taylor RJ, Jayabalu A, Engel AL, Khuu TH, Wang RK, Neitz M, Neitz J, Reh TA
• LB47 Making multiple therapeutic cell products from a cGMP-compliant iPSC line.
  Cytotherapy 2017 Xianmin Zeng, Ying Pei, Helen Cifuentes, Thelma Garcia, Deepak Lamba, Mahendra Rao
• CRISPR-Based Genome Engineering in Human Stem Cells.
  Patient-Specific Stem Cells 2017 Thelma Garcia, Deepak A. Lamba
• Modeling Neuroretinal Development and Disease in Stem Cells.
  Patient-Specific Stem Cells 2017 Deepak A. Lamba
• Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease.
  Patient-Specific Stem Cells 2017 Deepak A. Lamba
• Patient-Specific Stem Cells.
  Patient-Specific Stem Cells 2017 Deepak A. Lamba
• Patient-Specific Stem Cells.
  Patient-Specific Stem Cells 2017 Deepak A. Lamba
• Patient-Specific Stem Cells.
  Patient-Specific Stem Cells 2017 Thelma Garcia, Deepak A. Lamba
• A novel AhR ligand, 2AI, protects the retina from environmental stress.
  Scientific reports 2016 Gutierrez MA, Davis SS, Rosko A, Nguyen SM, Mitchell KP, Mateen S, Neves J, Garcia TY, Mooney S, Perdew GH, Hubbard TD, Lamba DA, Ramanathan A
• Modeling the Dynamic AMD-Associated Chronic Oxidative Stress Changes in Human ESC and iPSC-Derived RPE Cells.
  Investigative ophthalmology & visual science 2015 Garcia TY, Gutierrez M, Reynolds J, Lamba DA
• Restoring Vision: Where are We with Stem Cells?.
  Current Ophthalmology Reports 2015 Jie Zhu, Deepak A. Lamba
• Retinal Repair Using Stem Cells.
  Stem Cell Aging: Mechanisms, Consequences, Rejuvenation 2015 Mark Gutierrez, Deepak A. Lamba
• Directed Differentiation towards Human Neural Retinal Cells.
  Neural Stem Cell Assays 2014 Deepak A. Lamba
• DEPTOR is a stemness factor that regulates pluripotency of embryonic stem cells.
  The Journal of biological chemistry 2014 Agrawal P, Reynolds J, Chew S, Lamba DA, Hughes RE
• An Update on Retinal Stem Cell Therapy.
  Current Ophthalmology Reports 2013 Jennifer R. Chao, Deepak A. Lamba
• Hypoxia induces re-entry of committed cells into pluripotency.
  Stem cells (Dayton, Ohio) 2013 Mathieu J, Zhang Z, Nelson A, Lamba DA, Reh TA, Ware C, Ruohola-Baker H
• Human embryonic stem cell applications for retinal degenerations.
  Experimental eye research 2013 Reynolds J, Lamba DA
• Production and transplantation of retinal cells from human and mouse embryonic stem cells.
  Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) 2012 La Torre A, Lamba DA, Jayabalu A, Reh TA
• Genome-wide analysis of Müller glial differentiation reveals a requirement for Notch signaling in postmitotic cells to maintain the glial fate.
  PloS one 2011 Nelson BR, Ueki Y, Reardon S, Karl MO, Georgi S, Hartman BH, Lamba DA, Reh TA
• Microarray characterization of human embryonic stem cell--derived retinal cultures.
  Investigative ophthalmology & visual science 2011 Lamba DA, Reh TA
• Chapter 24 Regenerative Medicine for Diseases of the Retina.
  Principles of Regenerative Medicine 2011 Deepak A. Lamba, Thomas A. Reh
• A method for stabilizing RNA for transfection that allows control of expression duration.
  Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists 2010 Hayashi T, Lamba DA, Slowik A, Reh TA, Bermingham-McDonogh O
• Blimp1 controls photoreceptor versus bipolar cell fate choice during retinal development.
  Development (Cambridge, England) 2010 Brzezinski JA, Lamba DA, Reh TA
• Generation, purification and transplantation of photoreceptors derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells.
  PloS one 2010 Lamba DA, McUsic A, Hirata RK, Wang PR, Russell D, Reh TA
• Directing human embryonic stem cells to a retinal fate.
  Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) 2010 Reh TA, Lamba D, Gust J
• Histone deacetylase inhibition elicits an evolutionarily conserved self-renewal program in embryonic stem cells.
  Cell stem cell 2009 Ware CB, Wang L, Mecham BH, Shen L, Nelson AM, Bar M, Lamba DA, Dauphin DS, Buckingham B, Askari B, Lim R, Tewari M, Gartler SM, Issa JP, Pavlidis P, Duan Z, Blau CA
• Strategies for retinal repair: cell replacement and regeneration.
  Progress in brain research 2009 Lamba DA, Karl MO, Reh TA
• Baf60c is a component of the neural progenitor-specific BAF complex in developing retina.
  Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists 2008 Lamba DA, Hayes S, Karl MO, Reh T
• Neural regeneration and cell replacement: a view from the eye.
  Cell stem cell 2008 Lamba D, Karl M, Reh T
• 23 Regenerative Medicine for Diseases of the Retina.
  Principles of Regenerative Medicine 2008 Deepak Lamba, Thomas A. Reh