Patrice Fort

PhD, University of Strasbourg (France)

Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science and Molecular and Integrative Physiology

Dr Fort’s laboratory focuses on molecular and cellular aspects of neuroscience, more specifically the mechanisms involved in cell survival and how they are regulated and potentially overwhelmed or defective during neurodegenerative events. The laboratory uses the retina as an accessible and visible portion of the central nervous system to study these mechanisms in the context of acute and chronic neurodegenerative conditions including trauma, metabolic and systemic conditions. 

Dr Fort earned his M.S. in Neurosciences and Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Aspects of Biology from the University of Strasbourg (France) before joining in 2005 the Penn State Retina Research Group to study the mechanisms associated with diabetes that lead to neurodegeneration and vision loss. Promoted faculty in 2008, he characterized the role and regulation of crystallin proteins in the retina during diabetes, as well as novel function and regulation of the Akt/mTOR pathway in retinal physiology. He was recruited in 2011 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Michigan where he continues to study the regulation of intrinsic protective mechanisms in the retina under normal and pathological conditions. You can view is publications via Google Scholar here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aAqh830AAAAJ&hl=en