Lens wound healing and the pathogenesis of posterior capsular opacification: Insights from RNAseq profiling
Dr. Melinda Duncan
Professor, Biological Sciences, University of Delaware
Cataract, defined as opacification of the ocular lens, was the most common form of blindness throughout history. However, over the past 50 years, a new surgical technique, extracapsular lens extraction with intraocular lens implantation, has been developed, and refined, into a quick and easy outpatient procedure which effectively treats this condition. However, like all surgeries, this procedure is accompanied by inflammation, and later, fibrotic scarring due to wound healing responses. Like other fibrotic conditions, this fibrotic scarring is driven, at least in part, by transforming growth factor beta signaling; however it has long been a mystery how surgery induces this signaling pathway. This seminar will discuss how RNAseq methods have revealed potential mechanisms underlying post-cataract surgery wound healing responses and how RNAseq coupled with advanced genetic approaches have elucidated the function of predicted regulatory molecules.
Dr. Duncan received a PhD in Biochemistry from Rutgers University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health. In 1997 Dr. Duncan joined UD, where she is currently a Professor in Biological Sciences. She directs an NIH funded research program focused on lens and cataract pathophysiology as well as ocular wound healing, authoring nearly 100 publications over her career. In addition, she has extensive administrative experience developing innovative research and education programs focused on building Delaware’s biomedical research workforce and infrastructure. Dr. Duncan is a Program Faculty of the new NIH T32 Predoctoral Training Grant in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Data Science (CBB). She will serve among the faculty mentors for the first cohort of T32 Fellows funded by this prestigious award (Grant Number T32GM142603) starting Fall 2022.
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