Dr Parwez Hossain | University of Southampton

Research Interests

Currently, Parwezs research activity is focused finding new approaches to manage corneal disease.

Corneal infections are a major cause of visual impairment worldwide. In the UK alone, 6000 patients are affected from corneal microbial infections every year. Bacterial organisms such Pseudomonas aeroginosa are major causative agents in pathogenesis. Visual impairment often is very rapid (within 24 hours) and frequently leads to permanent visual loss (Figure 1).

A common problem during such infection is the severe levels of corneal tissue damage. We know from animal models, that this results from the combined effects from the actions of the pathogen and the hosts inflammatory process. The cornea quickly loses its normal transparency, leading to visual impairment. Since the cornea is a thin structure (human central cornea thickness is only 550m), tissue damage carries high risks of ocular perforation and visual loss.

Although antimicrobial therapies are usually successful in reducing the pathogen load, they do not help to limit tissue damage. Currently, there is no effective treatment to limit this. Such therapies are highly desirable since patients would benefit from reduced effects of uncontrolled tissue damage.

Parwez has set-up a clinical and laboratory investigative programme, to investigate how different pathogens interact with the human cornea. Collaborating with other groups in the University with expertise in molecular microbiology, tissue culture and leukocyte biology, he has developed, an ex vivo human explant tissue model to understand the early events in cornea-pathogen interaction.

Parwezs group has recently found that activation of Pathogen Recognition Receptors (Toll-like Receptors (TLRs)) in patients with gram negative corneal infection, profoundly influence the ability of corneal stromal cells to produce pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-1beta, IL-8, IL-6, as well as, tissue degradative enzymes like matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and undergo TLR-4 mediated apoptosis (Figure 2).

Parwez uses his clinical practice to collect patient samples with severe corneal inflammatory disease. His clinical service serves a large referral base of approximately 2 million patients coming from Hampshire, Isle of Wight & the Channel Islands. With his NHS colleagues, he runs one of the busiest centers for corneal transplantation in the UK. This arrangement complements his laboratory studies, where he requires a steady supply of human corneal tissue for his explant models.

These laboratory investigations are structured so that new drugs can be assessed for their effectiveness in combating these effects.

In Vivo Anterior Segment Imaging of Corneal Infectious Disease Parwezs group have developed the technology of Anterior segment Optical Coherence Tomography to provide both qualitative and quantitative assessment of corneal inflammatory disease. His group has found that this method is an effective modality to measure the different stages of bacterial corneal infection (Figure 3).

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Dr Parwez Hossain | University of Southampton