# Non-invasive, living histology of capillary structure and single cell blood flow in mouse model of diabetic retinopathy

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER · 2020 · $416,722

## Abstract

Summary/Abstract
 In the US, diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in working age adults and remains a
public health problem throughout the world. The earliest manifestations of this eye disease are believed to
originate in capillary dysfunction resulting in both over- and under perfusion of regional capillaries. And while
these changes in microvascular structure have been identified as hallmarks of the disease, the earliest
functional changes in this microscopic network remain unclear. Is microvascular flow impaired early before
capillary structural changes, or does the formation of aberrant vessel patterns, as a consequence, profoundly
change retinal capillary flow?
 Conventional retina cameras generally lack the necessary resolution to study capillary-level blood flow
because the eye's optics blur the microscopic capillaries at the back of the eye. In this study, we develop and
deploy a new retinal camera that turns the eye into a high-power microscope to study single cell blood flow the
back of the living eye. Combined with the optical improvements of this adaptive optics camera which corrects
for image blur, we have coupled two other innovations to image the movement of individual blood cells as they
move through the tiniest of capillaries only 1/10th the thickness of a human hair. First, blood cells are not only
microscopic, but they also move at fast rates of speed. To image these blood cells free of motion blur, the use
of a high-speed camera is required. In this research project, we combine the blur-correcting optics with an
exceptionally fast camera that can capture over 30,000 snapshots per second. This camera is focused at
single capillaries and can image the blood cells as they flow by -one by one. This advancement allows us to
measure blood cell speed and provide exact counts of the number of passing blood cells, two innovative
measures of blood flow at the capillary level. A second innovation uses special light-scattering properties of
blood cells to provide highly detailed images of blood cell boundaries against the vessel wall and surrounding
tissue. The resultant images provide not only high resolution images of blood cells, but can also provide
unprecedented measures of blood cell type and their deformation within microvessels of the eye. By tracking
the progressive changes in capillary flow and microvascular structure over the course of diabetes from weeks-
to-years, we seek to better understand the earliest events leading to vascular disease of the eye. In this study,
we examine the impact of high blood sugar levels on a mouse model of human diabetes. Changes in single-
cell blood flow will be non-invasively imaged over time to determine the impact of diabetes on the smallest
vessels of the eye.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9963223
- **Project number:** 5R01EY028293-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Jesse Barrett Schallek
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $416,722
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-30 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9963223

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9963223, Non-invasive, living histology of capillary structure and single cell blood flow in mouse model of diabetic retinopathy (5R01EY028293-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9963223. Licensed CC0.

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