All posts by kleinmanmd

I am a vitreoretinal surgeon and scientist focused on advancing next-generation therapeutics for age-related macular degeneration and other retinal diseases.
Researchers, Team, Uncategorized

Sushil Dubey, PhD

sushil-dubey
I hail from Lucknow, a city famed as the cultural center of northern India. After completing my bachelor’s degree in chemistry and botany from Lucknow University, I migrated to south India with a fellowship from the Department of Biotechnology (Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India) to pursue my masters in Biotechnology at Madurai Kamaraj University, India. I qualified the national level GATE exam and started my doctoral program under the mentorship of Dr. P. Sundaresan at the Department of Genetics, Aravind Medical Research Foundation. The focus of my doctoral study was identification and characterization of genes associated with congenital globe anomalies.
With a specific interest to work in the field of genetics and epigenetics of ocular diseases, I applied to Dr. Kleinman’s lab for a postdoctoral position and joined the group in July 2015. During my tenure as a postdoc at UK, I will be exploring the epigenetic regulation and transcriptional repression mediated through histone deacetylase complexes in aging retina and AMD. Data from our lab showed altered expression of HDAC1 and 2 in advanced dry AMD. HDACs (HDAC1 and 2) function in different multiprotein corepressor complexes (mainly Sin3, NuRD and CoREST) that are associated with sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins, which are thought to target the complexes to specific genes, leading to local chromatin modification. The main focus of my research will be to identify the role of these corepressor complexes and subsequent transcriptomic effects in aging retina and AMD.
Outside my research, I like to spend time with my wife and daughter. I also like to travel and look forward to explore and experience all the good things that the Bluegrass State has to offer.
Alumni, Team

Andre Berner, PhD

Andre Berner, PhD
Andre Berner, PhD

We are investigating Histone deacetylases (HDAC) which are part of an epigenetic regulatory system serving as a unique control of the chromatin remodeling process, determining the transcriptional availability of any given gene. HDAC inhibitors (HDACi) are reported to suppress neovascularization in various mouse models and have become a novel target for the epigenetic regulation of critical pathways in neurodegenerative diseases including AMD. Heterogeneous effects of HDAC function occur depending on the target locus and the tissue type as HDACi can trigger both pro- and anti-inflammatory effects in a range of inflammation-relevant cell types. These effects include changes in pro- inflammatory eotaxin expression. We aim to establish the effects of broad band chemical HDACi on eotaxin expression and the correlation to cell death.

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Mark Kleinman, Researchers, Team

Mark Kleinman, MD

Mark Kleinman, MD, MS, Principal Investigator in the Ocular Biology and Imaging Lab at the University of Kentucky
Mark Kleinman, MD, Principal Investigator in the Ocular Biology and Imaging Lab at the East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine

I am a physician-scientist at East Tennessee State University specializing in diseases of the retina and vitreous. My research efforts are committed to conducting basic science investigations on neovascular and degenerative eye diseases with specific emphases on aging, inflammation and molecular imaging of early pathological changes to the retina and choroid.

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