The history and current status of vision research laboratory at USTC

In 1982, the Vision Research Laboratory in USTC was founded by Prof. Tiande Shou, whose research was focused on visual information processing in the central nervous system. In 1997, Dr. Yifeng Zhou was appointed Director of the Vision Research Lab after Prof. Shou left for Fudan University. The Vision Research Lab has undertaken more than 30 research projects since 1982, with the total grant support exceeding 8 million yuan. More than 60 papers were published in international journals, with more than 400 citations. A paper published in Neurobiology of Aging was selected as one of Chinas 100 Most Influential International Research Papers in 2007 by the Institute of Science and Technology Information of China. Members of the Lab have won many national awards, including Second Awards of Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Vision Research Lab has wide collaborations with other labs in the world: ① a joint research project with Professor Zhonglin Lu from University of South California on the mechanism of amblyopia resulted in a paper published in PNAS in 2008; ② collaboration with Professor Audie Leventhal from University of Utah on the mechanisms of aging in the mammalian visual system. The project was funded by a NIH subcontract and the Natural Science Foundation of China, and the result was published in Science in 2003. Furthermore, members of the Lab opened five courses; one of which won a course award from USTC. The Lab has supervised more than 50 Bachelors theses, 20 Master theses, and 21 PhD dissertations.