Photosensitive Ganglion Cell - Discovery

Discovery

In 1991 Russell G. Foster and colleagues, including Ignacio Provencio, discovered a non-rod, non-cone photoreceptor in the eyes of mice. It was shown to mediate circadian rhythms, i.e. the body's 24-hour biological clock. Foster was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2008. These novel cells express the photopigment melanopsin, which was first identified by Provencio and colleagues.

Read more about this topic:  Photosensitive Ganglion Cell

Famous quotes containing the word discovery:

    The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.
    Karl Kraus (1874–1936)

    We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Next to the striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male.
    Max Lerner (b. 1902)