Nickname: Bujji
Hometown: Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
Graduate School: PGIMER, Chandigarh
E-mail: sri.bammidi@gmail.com

How would you explain your research in 3 sentences to someone who is not in science?

Degenerative diseases of the eye are one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. Understanding the different sources of stem cells and employing them for regenerative therapeutics have paved way for hopeful treatments beyond prescriptive medications. Therefore, we are characterizing different sources of stem cells and verifying their efficacy on animal models mimicking retinal degeneration.

More about you

I am simply an extrovert, who would otherwise be a journalist or teacher if I had not been  into research. I am a voracious reader and love travelling a lot. I also have an ear for carnatic classical and Hindustani fusion music with an intense inclination for the study of world religions and spirituality. My philosophy of life is to compete with shortcomings of the self, than with the world outside and achieve perfection in whatever I do. My family and friends are my greatest strength and source of my everyday inspiration.

About your work

The Ciliary Epithelium (both fetal and adult), has been isolated, cultured and characterized into retinal/neural lineages in our lab. These stem cells are further transplanted in comparison with two other prevalent sources i.e. Mesenchymal (bone marrow derived) and Embryonic (Umbilical cord blood derived) stem cells. As the Retinal injury model has been devolved in our lab by inducing laser injury in the retina of mice by laser photocoagulator it is planned to investigate the efficacy between the two stem cells subtypes.