Executive Director - Professor Jonathan Stone BSc(Med), PhD (Sydney)

Professor Stone completed a BSc (Med) and PhD (1966) in P.O. Bishop's group at the University of Sydney, beginning life-long interest in the function, structure and diseases of the visual system. After postdoctoral work in JC Eccles' group in Chicago and O. Creutzfeld's and H. Holländer's groups in Münich, he rejoined Bishop's group, at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (ANU), in 1970, as a Research Fellow. He moved to Anatomy at the University of New South Wales (1976-1986), and then to the Challis Chair of Anatomy (Sydney, 1987-2003). From 2003-2007 he served as Director, Research School of Biological Sciences, before rejoining the University of Sydney (2007 -) as Professor of Retinal and Cerebral Neurobiology. He served as Director of the then Institute for Biomedical Research, the predecessor of the Bosch Insititute from 2000-2003.

Professor Stone is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and served as its Secretary (Biological Sciences) from 1986-90. He has served as Managing Trustee of the Sir Zelman Cowen Universities Fund, a private charitable trust committed to the support of medical research, since 1995.

Jonathan has contributed to understanding of the structure and function of the visual pathways, including the concept of parallel processing in the visual system and retinal development, angiogenesis and degeneration. His recent work concerns neuroprotective approaches to the treatment of age-related degenerations of the retina and brain

Current national competitive grants

ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science (2006 - 13), total funding $14.5m

• Zhu Y, Valter K, Stone J (2010) Environmental Damage to the Retina and Preconditioning: Contrasting Effects of Light and Hyperoxic Stress. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci In press
• Zhu Y, Natoli R, Stone J (2010) Differential gene expression in mouse retina related to regional differences in vulnerability to hyperoxia. Molecular Vision In
  press

• Valter K, Kirk DK, Stone J (2009) Optimising the structure and function of the adult P23H-3 retina by light management in the juvenile and adult. Exp Eye Res 89: 1003-1011
• Stone J, Heckenlively J (2009) Animal Models of Inherited Retinal Degenerations. In: Squire L (ed) The Encyclopaedia of Neuroscience, vol 1. Academic Press, Oxford, pp 437-447
• Shaw VE, Spana S, Ashkan K, Benabid AL, Stone J, Baker GE, Mitrofanis J (2009) Neuroprotection of midbrain dopaminergic cells in MPTP-treated mice after near-infrared light treatment. J Comp Neurol 518: 25-40
• Chrysostomou V, Valter K, Stone J (2009) Cone-rod dependence in the rat retina: variation with the rate of rod damage. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 50: 3017-3023
• Chrysostomou V, Stone J, Valter K (2009) Life history of cones in the of the rhodopsin-mutant P23H-3 rat: evidence of long term survival. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 50: 2407-2416

• Stone J, van Driel D, Valter K, Rees S, Provis J (2008) The locations of mitochondria in mammalian photoreceptors: relation to retinal vasculature. Brain Res 1189: 58-69
• Stone J, Valter K (2008) Roles Of Oxygen In The Stability Of Photoreceptors: Evidence From Mouse And Other Models Of Human Disease. In: Chalupa L (ed) Eye, Retina, and Visual System of the Mouse. MIT Press, pp 559-572
• Stone J (2008) What initiates the formation of senile plaques? The origin of Alzheimer-like dementias in capillary haemorrhages. Medical Hypotheses 71: 347-359
• Natoli R, Provis J, Valter K, Stone J (2008) Expression and role of the early-response gene Oxr1 in the hyperoxia-challenged mouse retina. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 49: 4561-4567
• Natoli R, Provis J, Valter K, Stone J (2008) Gene regulation induced in the C57BL/6J mouse retina by hyperoxia: a temporal microarray study. Mol Vis 14: 1983-1994
• Eells J, DeSmet K, Kirk D, Wong-Riley M, Whelan H, Ver Hoeve J, Nork T, Stone J, Valter K (2008) Photobiomodulation for the Treatment of Retinal Injury and Retinal Degenerative Diseases. In: Waynant R, Tata D (eds) Proceeding of Light- Assisted Tissue Regeneration and Therapy Conference, vol I. Springer, New York, pp 39-51
• Chrysostomou V, Stone J, Stowe S, Barnett NL, Valter K (2008) The status of cones in the rhodopsin mutant P23H-3 retina: light-regulated damage and repair in parallel with rods. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 49: 1116-1125