Dr. Dastgheib’s research career has focused on the histopathology and mechanisms of vision-threatening eye disease, with particular emphasis on age-related macular degeneration. His work reflects early hypothesis-driven tissue investigation and collaboration with academic centers including Johns Hopkins University, the National Institutes of Health, and Duke University.

VEGF in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

In the early 1990s, while working in the Wilmer Eye Institute’s Ophthalmic Pathology Laboratory and the National Eye Institute, Dr. K. Alexander Dastgheib identified the presence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in early neovascular age-related macular degeneration using immunohistochemistry on whole human eye sections.

This tissue-based finding provided early mechanistic insight into the pathogenesis of wet AMD and anticipated the subsequent development of anti-VEGF therapies, which have since become the standard of care worldwide and have preserved vision for millions of patients.

Selected Publication:

Dastgheib KA. Histopathologic evidence of VEGF in early neovascular AMD: from a 1992 hypothesis to a 1994 discovery — a historical perspective. International journal of retina and vitreous, 2005

• Histopathologic evidence of VEGF in early neovascular AMD: from a 1992 hypothesis to a 1994 discovery — a historical perspective

Additional publications and presentations by Dr. Dastgheib:

• (coming soon)