Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge my wife, Sandra, for her support and encouragement through-
out my studies. I would also like to thank my extended family, and especially my mother,
Terri Barrow, who were very helpful and supportive while I worked to write this thesis.
Sam Wu has been a mentor as well as a friend throughout my studies. In addition to
providing all of the equipment, facilities, and materials for these studies, our many conver-
sations have shaped and guided my learning process.
I would also like to especially acknowledge Fan Gao, who meticulously collected the data
for the paired rod recordings presented in section 5.3. His sense of humor and fondness for
conversation have provided a useful distraction from lab work.
I would like to thank David Simons and Cameron Cowan for many interesting conver-
sations and feedback on ideas, and Zhou Yang for her instruction and help with performing
western blots and immunohistochemistry. Mohammad Abd-el-Barr served as an influential
mentor and role model when I was new to the lab. Furthermore, I would like to acknowl-
edge other members and former members of the lab who contributed in many ways: Aijun
Zhang, JiJie Pang, and Roy Jacoby.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the funding sources that made this research possible:
NIH grants EY04446, EY02520, the Retina Research Foundation (Houston), Research to
Prevent Blindness, Inc. provided generous support for our lab. I also received support for
several years from the NIH T32 predoctoral training grant EY007001.