Pluripotent Stem Cells in Eye Disease Therapy

Dr. Kapil Bharti holds a bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from the Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, a master’s degree in biotechnology from the M.S. Rao University, Baroda, India. He obtained his Ph.D. from J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, graduating summa cum laude. His Ph.D. work involved research in the areas of heat stress, chaperones, and epigenetics.  He did his postdoc at the National Institutes of Health, where he published numerous papers in the areas of transcription regulation, pigment cell biology, and developmental biology of the eye. After his postdoc, he joined the National Eye Institute as their first Earl Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator. His lab was recently awarded two prestigious grants: 1) the only Intramural Common Fund grant to develop a phase I Investigational New Drug (IND) for Autologous induced pluripotent stem cell derived retinal pigment epithelium tissue; and 2) a DoD grant to develop a 3D-retina tissue to model retinaldiseases in vitro. His current work as a Senior Investigator and the head of the Unit on Ocular and Stem Cell Translational Research involves understanding mechanism of retinal degenerative diseases using induced pluripotent stem cell technology, and developing cell-based and drug-based therapies for such diseases.

• Pluripotent Stem Cells to Model Degenerative Retinal Diseases: The RPE perspective.- Utility of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium for an in vitro model of proliferative vitreoretinopathy.- Developing cell-based therapies for RPE-associated degenerative eye diseases.- Pluripotent Stem Cell derived 3D Ocular Tissue Transplantation – role of immune system in cell integration.- Use of Stem Cells to model optic nerve degeneration diseases.- Surgical approaches for RPE/retina.- 3D Engineering Ocular Tissues for Disease Modeling and Drug Testing.- Index.