Sangeetha Kandoi, PhD, believes that eyes are perhaps the most important sense organs because of their importance to quality of life. Her aspirations as a biologist drive her to develop potential therapeutic strategies to improve the vision health of individuals. Dr. Kandoi's interest in science began in 2005 when she was a researcher at LifeCell International in India, under the guidance of Dr. Ajit Kumar. With this experience, she pursued her doctorate in the lab of Dr. Rama Shanker Verma from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, where she also had the opportunity to work in the United States as a visiting graduate student.
For her postdoctoral work, Dr. Kandoi joined Dr. Deepak A. Lamba’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco. Her goal for this project is to understand photoreceptor remodeling in the hibernating, cone-dominant 13-lined ground squirrel as a model for macular degeneration. Her overall objective is to ascertain how cones are rescued when these animals emerge from their hypometabolic state to an active state after several months of hibernation. The findings from this work will support a long-term strategy of using related technological advances to circumvent catastrophic vision loss in humans. Dr. Kandoi will complete the work within the collaborative environment promoted by Dr. Lamba, Dr. Dana K. Merriman at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Seth Blackshaw at Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Daniel Saban at Duke University.