Kayarat Nair, PhD

Sai Nair, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Anatomy. He obtained a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Mumbai, India. During his PhD, Dr. Nair studied the role of cell surface receptors in regulation of neutrophil effector functions. Dr. Nair received his postdoctoral training in Dr. Simon John’s laboratory at The Jackson Laboratory. He worked extensively on characterizing both spontaneous and chemically induced mouse mutants that recapitulate features of human glaucoma. He has identified genes contributing to glaucoma, generated new mouse models of human glaucoma and have utilized them to gain insight into the underlying pathological causes of the disease. The overall goal of his laboratory is to identify the specific genetic risk factors conferring susceptibility towards ocular diseases with a major focus on glaucoma and uncover their mechanisms of action using state of art genetics and genomics techniques. A major aim is to functionally validate candidate glaucoma genes identified through genetic association studies (both rare and common variants) and to uncover the underlying pathogenic processes and identify targets with therapeutic potential. His laboratory employs a multi-disciplinary approach by integrating the use of animal models, genetics, genomics, molecular biology, cell-biology and physiology based experiments to gain mechanistic insight into disease pathogenesis.