Research

About 60% of the United States population possesses a refractive correction aid. Although the majority of this population relies on spectacles or contact lenses, the permanent correction of refractive error is an attractive choice for many patients. It is estimated that almost 1 million patients undergo corneal refractive surgery each year in the United States alone.

Eye injury is a significant clinical problem and leading cause of severe visual impairments. It is estimated that about 55 million eye injuries occur annually worldwide, and incidence of eye trauma in the United States is estimated to be over 2 million. Cornea is outermost part of the eye, and thus most likely to sustain a damage. It is a highly specialized tissue dedicated to refract light onto the retina, and thus maintaining its transparency is a paramount.

While osteoarthritis is understood today to be a disease of the joint as an organ, with bone, cartilage, and synovial fluid involved, it is believed that the pathological progression occurs due to the initial disturbance of the extracellular matrix homeostasis in articular cartilage. The work of this project aims to develop tools to characterize these transformations at the earliest stages and couple it with a treatment that would be less invasive than what is currently available. 

When diagnosed with prostate cancer a patient with his physician are faced with the decision if and how to treat it. If the physician and patient choose to treat the cancer, the risk of metastasis may be reduced, but the side effects can be rather severe. On the other hand, aggressive forms of prostate cancer require immediate and decisive attention. An assay capable of precisely assessing metastatic potential of the disease would thus be beneficial to physicians and their patients when choosing an appropriate treatment.