RM

Rajiv R Mohan

Also known as: Mohan RR, Rajiv Mohan

University of Missouri, Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital, Cleveland Clinic

Research areas: Medicine · Ophthalmology · Corneal Surgery and Treatments · Corneal surgery and disorders · Ocular Surface and Contact Lens

ORCID iD 0000-0002-1857-4200
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About

I am a curators’ distinguished professor of ophthalmology and molecular medicine with about 30 years of research experience and broad knowledge of corneal biology, corneal gene therapy, corneal wound healing mechanisms, corneal nanomedicine, medicinal chemistry, and translational vision science with 190+ peer-reviewed journal articles and 400+ abstracts. I supervise and lead a collaborative team of researchers studying corneal wound healing, fibrosis, nanomedicine, gene therapy and ocular injury projects funded by the NIH and VA grants. I have been fortunate for an opportunity to teach, train, and mentor >150 students (postdoc, PhD, Master, residents, clinical fellows, medical, veterinary, undergrad, and high school) and having joint publications with them on various aspects of corneal research in past 18 years at the University of Missouri, Columbia. It is pleasing to watch them pursuing a successful career in academia and industries.

I am a recognized expert in corneal wound healing associated with eye injuries, studying the role of cytokines, growth factors, signaling pathways, autophagy, stromal repair and regeneration, and newer therapy development including gene therapy (viral, nonviral, and nanomedicine). My lab has developed novel rabbit, dog, pig, and mouse models that are used worldwide for studying corneal wound healing and myofibroblast biology and evaluating the therapeutic potential of various agents in vivo. My lab is the first to establish tissue-targeted gene therapy approaches for treating corneal scarring and neovascularization with genes including decorin, PEDF, BMP7, soluble-TGFbRII, Smad7, HGF, Id3 etc. in vivo, uncovering the role of epigenetics in corneal wound healing and haze/fibrosis inhibition in vivo with histone deacetylase inhibitors (TSA, SAHA, ITF2357, etc.) and role of angiotensin-converting-enzyme in treating corneal neovascularization in rabbits and elucidating many novel mechanisms linked to myofibroblast formation/persistence and corneal sacring and its elimination in vivo.

Also, my lab has contributed significantly to the field of corneal gene therapy by identifying various efficient nanoparticle and AAV vectors, developing several simple vector-delivery techniques, and establishing efficient and safe nanoparticle and AAV based methods to deliver gene therapy selectively into desired corneal cells in rabbits and rodents in vivo and human in vitro and ex vivo. My lab has a deep interest in discovering novel mechanisms linked to corneal repair and developing newer therapeutic approaches for corneal scarring and other prevalent ocular disorders. I have the expertise, experience, and leadership for the successful completion of research proposed in this application aiming to therapeutic potential, underlying mechanisms, and safety of gene therapy in treating ocular diseases using state-of-the-art multimodal in vivo eye imaging systems, molecular techniques, in vivo preclinical rodent, rabbit, and pig models, and human in vitro cell and organ culture models. I will be extending my expertise in gene-based therapies and pharmacological interventions in in vitro and in vivo models including study design and interpretation of therapeutic outcomes.

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Publications (165)