Rate My Professor Margaret DeAngelis

DeAngelis directs a translational research program employing systems-biology approaches to uncover disease mechanisms in Mendelian and complex blinding disorders, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and hypertensive retinopathy, alongside comorbid conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Funded by the NIH, foundations, and pharmaceutical industry, her work leverages genomic methods like single-cell RNA-Seq, miRNA-seq, bulk RNA-Seq, single nuclei ATAC-Seq, allele-specific expression, and bioinformatics to identify therapeutic targets. She has developed a well-characterized human donor eye bank and published the standardized phenotyping protocol for donor eyes used in biochemical and molecular studies. With over 100 publications and nearly 10,000 citations, key works include "Single-cell atlas of the transcriptome and chromatin accessibility in the human retina" (Nature Genetics, 2026), "A multi-omics atlas of the human retina at single-cell resolution" (Cell Genomics, 2023), and analyses of sex-specific AMD mechanisms. Awards include the Silver Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (2024) and Sigma Xi (2021). She chairs NIH study sections, serves on Department of Defense and foundation panels, editorial boards, and steering committees for the International AMD Genetics Consortium (NEI/NIH) and Global Eye Genetics Consortium. Recent funding encompasses a $2.2 million National Institute on Aging grant for sex-specific AMD differences, $500,000 from the Macular Degeneration Foundation (2020-2025), and multi-million-dollar awards from Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and Genentech.