سيد اختر

Research Interests

My main research interests involve studying the ultrastructural pathology of corneas diseased with dystrophies such as Granular Dystrophy, Lattice Dystrophy, Bowman’s layer dystrophy.  I have also studied the distribution and organisation of collagen fibrils and proteoglycans of pathological cornea such as keratoconus, MLS syndrome, Band Keratopathy, and Bullous Keratopathy.  The pathology of the cornea was also evaluated by assessing the distribution of glycoprotein such Big-H3, fibronectin, fibrillin, vimentin and collagen Type 1 and 3, with immunogold techniques. The distribution of proteoglycans such as keratan sulfate, chondroitin sulfate were also investigated using specific antibodies such as 5-D-4, BKS-1, 2-B-3. Some of the structures of the cornea are shown below.

In addition to corneal research, I also investigated the degeneration of the optic nerve with increased ocular pressure of glaucoma eyes in rat models. My research interests further extended to human scoliosis intervertebral disc, arthritis cartilage, heart valve, and Alzheimer disease.  I was also involved in assessing the morphological changes in breast cancer cells (MCF7) and their resistance to drugs such as Tamoxifen.

Recently I have been working on the genetic model of Zebrafish in collaboration with Prof Ralph, Vienna Medical College, Vienna.  I am exploring ultrastructure changes in the developing (from 56hr to 10weeks) cornea of normal and mutant zebrafish.  The study may help gain an understanding of the pathology of human diseases such as keratoconus, because surprisingly the zebrafish cornea is similar to that of humans.