DR. BERNARDO YAÑEZ SOTO
Bernardo Yáñez-Soto is a CONACyT Young Researcher at the Institute of Physics of Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi. His research interests lie in the area of biomaterials and tissue engineering. He has investigated on the use of polymeric basement membranes for the corneal epithelium incorporating biomimetic characteristics and the role of biophysical cues on corneal epithelialization and wound healing. He has also studied the intricate relation between the tear film and the ocular surface, and the development of new therapies and strategies to treat ocular surface diseases through the engineering of the epithelial surfaces for his postdoctoral research.
UPCOMING EVENTS
ARVO 2020
May 3-7, 2020
2019 AIChE annual meeting
November 10-15, 2019
3rd International Workshop in Matter out of Equilibrium
October, 2019
MY LATEST RESEARCH
Dry eye syndrome (DES) is a heterogeneous group of ocular surface disorders that are characterized by deficiency of the aqueous component of tears, excessive evaporation and/or insufficient wettability of the epithelial surface. The high wettability of the ocular surface has traditionally been attributed to the existence of a thick glycocalyx covering the cell surface, composed mainly of membrane-associated mucins and other glycosylated proteins. We investigated the influence of the glycocalyx on the wettability of the ocular epithelium by inducing the expression of mucins on the apical surface of human hTERT immortalized corneal epithelial cells (hTCEpi) by culturing with stratification medium (DMEM/F12 supplemented with 10 ng/mL EGF and 10% FBS) for up to 7 days. The surface properties (wettability, surface energy, contact angle hysteresis) are determined by measuring the sessile drop contact angle using a two fluid method, with PBS as the medium and perfluorocarbon (perfluorodecalin, perfluorooctane or tetradecafluorohexane) as the drop. Our findings indicate that the differences in surface properties are mainly due to the patterned expression of mucins; and these may be related to the stability of the tear film.
