Olachi Mezu-Ndubuisi, M.D., O.D.

Dr. Mezu-Ndubuisi’s early interest in vision science is based on her belief that the eyes provide a unique window to the body to directly visualize retinal blood vessels, and could be used as a biomarker to monitor systemic diseases in the body. Dr. Mezu-Ndubuisi’s research focus is ROP, a potentially blinding eye disease of multi-factorial origin affecting premature infants exposed to postnatal hyperoxia, characterized by abnormal retinal vascularization. There is no known drug cure for ROP. Current treatments such as laser therapy and intravitreal bevacizumab, an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) antibody, are limited in efficacy due to systemic toxicities, and have long term adverse effects. Therefore, ROP remains a leading cause of childhood blindness worldwide. Her research studies in ROP have been fueled by this dire need for more effective therapies.

Dr. Mezu-Ndubuisi’s research studies led to the novel use of in-vivo phosphorescence lifetime imaging to measure retinal vascular oxygen tension and fluorescein angiography (FA) to depict retinal vascular abnormalities in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR). The Mezu-Ndubuisi laboratory has established in vivo retinal imaging techniques in a mouse model of OIR model that have defined unique vascular, structural and functional phenotypes in ROP, which they have correlated to histopathological evidence of neuroglia dysfunction. Her lab has expanded the use of live non-invasive optical imaging techniques to study retinal development in neonatal mice, as well as investigate the role of oxidative stress on other developing tissues, like the brain, lungs, and kidneys. Dr. Mezu-Ndubuisi’s lab is currently investigating new mechanisms of ROP pathogenesis in order to discover novel therapies, that could potentially prevent severity and progression of ROP, while avoiding systemic toxicity. One of the on-going projects is studying the efficacy and mechanism of dual therapy of intravitreal VEGF-A microparticles and topical calcitriol to restore the vascular, structural, and functional OIR phenotype.