Complement-Mediated Regulation of Apolipoprotein E in Cultured Human RPE Cells.

My research focuses on applying mass spectrometry based proteomics to study proteins in eye tissues, cells and sub-cellular compartments to understand mechanisms of vision. An important aspect of my research is to identify proteins in different compartments of retinal photoreceptor cells, their amount and modification status at different cell states defined by the light conditions, genotype, disease etc. This information can be valuable in understanding molecular mechanisms of vision and biology of the photoreceptor cell. Another important aspect of my research is to assist basic scientist and clinicians in our department in their proteomic needs which include identification of proteins and other biomolecules in a given biological sample, detection of protein post-translational modifications and sequence variations, elucidation of protein-protein interactions and also characterization of changes in the protein concentration and composition in a biological sample at different conditions.

I have an active basic and clinical research program. I have been principal investigator on several funded clinical studies including investigations of an oral ganciclovir prodrug to treat CMV retinitis and a study to determine the safety of a cyclosporine sustained drug delivery implant in the treatment of uveitis. I am principal investigator of an ongoing multicenter trial of a fluocinolone sustained drug delivery implant to treat patients with severe uveitis and a trial of this same implant to treat diabetic macular edema. Recently, I have investigated the use of ultrasonography and optical coherence tomography to diagnose macular edema in a variety of ocular diseases. I have maintained an ongoing basic research program to test the hypothesis that cytokines are important in the development of proliferative vitreoretinopathy, an important intraocular wound healing disorder. Education: I am actively involved in resident and fellow education. I give lectures to residents and fellows on a variety of topics related to uveitis and vitreoretinal diseases and train fellows to perform vitreoretinal surgery. I train post-doctoral students and medical students to conduct clinically relevant research. I serve as a mentor for the Duke third year medical school research program. I have served on a yearly basis as course faculty at many national and international meetings.