Biography

Research Focus
Injuries and diseases of the optic nerve.

Dr. Kador is developing tissue engineering methods to create and transplant new cells to replace diseased and dead cells in order to restore vision to patients suffering end stage diseases of the retina and optic nerve.

Research Summary
My research interests lie at the intersection of chemistry, life sciences and engineering. Specifically, I am interested in the fields of biomaterials and tissue engineering.  I believe the future is in the union of these two fields, using modified biomaterials to give mechanical and chemical stimuli for growth and proper differentiation of cells in order to create cell material composite implants for the treatment of disease.  Here at the UMKC, my research has focused on creating three dimensional models of the retina that can be used to understand how retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) integrate and form synapses with their binding partners within the retina and develop methods to determine if RGCs we differentiate in vitro are able to respond functionally similarly to cells which are purified from tissue.  In the lab, we have developed scaffolds to recreate the organization of the retina and patterned immobilized guidance molecules onto these surfaces to polarize cell growth. We have shown that these techniques are able to mimic the alignment of the nerve fiber layer of the retina and have been used to transplant RGCs ex vivo.  Ultimately, we hope that these models and scaffolds will be used to develop a functional cell source and transplantation method to treat optic neuropathies such as glaucoma and optic nerve stroke.