My early work defined lumican, a keratan sulfate proteoglycan of connective tissue ECMs of the cornea, tendon, skin, cartilage. These studies predate completion of the Human Genome Project, necessitating the purification of the lumican protein, establishing its N-terminal amino acid sequence, isolating genomic and cDNA clones and Sanger sequencing of the lumican gene. Subsequently, we generated gene-targeted lumican-deficient mice that developed cloudy cornea, and skin and tendon fragility due to abnormal collagen fibril structure (Chakravarti, 1998).

We are exploring the use of human corneal organoids as a pre-animal model system to investigate human corneal development and disease. Matured for up to 4 months in culture, these human corneal organoids establish a layered ECM-rich cornea-like tissue (Foster, 2017). Single cell transcriptomic studies show all major corneal cell types (Maiti, 2022) and a cornea-like stromal extracellular matrix of collagens and proteoglycans (Ashworth, 2025).