Lily Wenjing Wu

Lily Wenjing Wu, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at Dean McGee Eye Institute, University of Oklahoma Health, where she investigates the role of specialized retinal lipids in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) under the mentorship of Dr. Martin-Paul Agbaga. Her research focuses on understanding how the depletion of VLC_PUFAs contributes to metabolic disturbances at the retinal pigmented epithelium, the critical support layer that sustains vision. Dr. Wu earned her PhD in physiology from the University of Oklahoma Health, where she uncovered the pathogenic mechanisms underlying a rare dominant mutation in the RPE65 gene that causes progressive blindness and published her findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She also holds an MS in molecular biology from Texas Christian University, where she studied viral immune evasion, and a BS in biology and psychology from Dallas Baptist University.

Prior to her current position, Dr. Wu completed postdoctoral training at Wake Forest School of Medicine, where she investigated retinal fibrosis and mitochondrial dysfunction in neovascular AMD. She has contributed to studies spanning retinal vitamin A metabolism, diabetic retinopathy, and retinal gene therapy and has published in PNAS, Cell Reports, Communication Biology, and Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. Her studies on developing novel approaches to attenuating AMD directly support the therapeutic aims of her current BrightFocus-funded project.