Overview
We are a group of clinician-scientists and PhD students, established by Professor Rayaz Malik in 2002. From our bases at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar and the University of Manchester we have pioneered and validated the use of in vivo corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) as an ophthalmic biomarker for monitoring neurodegeneration and neuroregeneration of corneal sub-basal nerves in peripheral neuropathies and central neurodegenerative disorders. In 2003, we published the first paper to quantify corneal nerve pathology and show a progressive reduction in corneal nerve fiber density, length and branch density in patients with increasing severity of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN).
We have developed automated image analysis software (CCMetrics and ACCMetrics) for manual and automated tracing of the nerve fibers, respectively enabling rapid and objective quantification of corneal nerve fiber morphology. We have shared the software under a license agreement for research purposes with more than 100 centers around the world. In addition, we have hosted several CCM training workshops on CCM image acquisition and analysis in both the UK and Qatar.