Ellen Ingolfsland, MD

Dr. Ingolfsland is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and a Neonatologist at the University of Minnesota. She completed her undergraduate degree at Wheaton College (IL) and her medical training at the University of Minnesota.

Her research program focuses on retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) through laboratory-based basic science and translational research. Her long-term goal is to improve ROP outcomes by informing clinical management of preterm infants through mechanistically focused research. ROP is a common, vision-impairing disease among very preterm infants and is multifactorial in its pathogenesis. The Ingolfsland Lab investigates the role of specific clinical comorbidities experienced by preterm infants in the development of ROP. Current experiments are focused on the impact of anemia on retinal vascular development and mechanisms involved. Their goal is to identify key pathways that are common to multiple comorbidities that can then be targeted for preventative or therapeutic interventions. The Ingolfsland laboratory utilizes the 50/10 rat model of oxygen-induced retinopathy and the human retinal microvascular endothelial cell culture model. Common laboratory techniques employed include retinal immunohistochemistry, bulk and single cell RNA sequencing, flow cytometry, qPCR, Western blot, and ELISA.