Scholars@Duke
Goldis Malek

Goldis Malek

Joseph A.C. Wadsworth Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology
Ophthalmology, Vitreoretinal Diseases & Surgery
Box 3802 Med Ctr, DUMC, Durham, NC 27710
Albert Eye Research Institute, Room 4006, Durham, NC 27710

Featured Works

Research resource: nuclear receptor atlas of human retinal pigment epithelial cells: potential relevance to age-related macular degeneration.

Journal article Mol Endocrinol · February 2011 Featured Work Retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells play a vital role in retinal physiology by forming the outer blood-retina barrier and supporting photoreceptor function. Retinopathies including age-related macular degeneration (AMD) involve physiological and patholo ... Full text Link to item Cite

The pivotal role of the complement system in aging and age-related macular degeneration: hypothesis re-visited.

Journal article Prog Retin Eye Res · March 2010 Featured Work During the past ten years, dramatic advances have been made in unraveling the biological bases of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of irreversible blindness in western populations. In that timeframe, two distinct lines of evide ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reticular pseudodrusen are subretinal drusenoid deposits.

Journal article Ophthalmology · February 2010 Featured Work PURPOSE: To characterize reticular pseudodrusen, a potential risk factor for late age-related macular degeneration. DESIGN: Retrospective, observational case series. PARTICIPANTS: Fifty-eight eyes of 33 patients with pseudodrusen (20 female). METHODS: Cons ... Full text Link to item Cite

PPAR nuclear receptors and altered RPE lipid metabolism in age-related macular degeneration.

Journal article Adv Exp Med Biol · 2010 Featured Work The pathophysiology of 'early' dry age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), characterized by the accumulation of lipid and protein-rich sub-retinal deposits remains largely unknown. Accumulation and dysregulated turnover of lipids as well as extracellular ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sub-retinal drusenoid deposits in human retina: organization and composition.

Journal article Exp Eye Res · November 2008 Featured Work We demonstrate histologically sub-retinal drusenoid debris in three aged human eyes, two of them affected by age-related maculopathy. By postmortem fundus examination, the lesions were drusen-like, i.e., they were pale spots apparently at the level of the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Oxidative stress-induced expression and modulation of Phosphatase of Regenerating Liver-1 (PRL-1) in mammalian retina.

Journal article Biochim Biophys Acta · September 2007 Featured Work The phosphatase of regenerating liver-1, PRL-1, gene was detected in a screen for foveal cone photoreceptor-associated genes. It encodes a small protein tyrosine phosphatase that was previously immunolocalized to the photoreceptors in primate retina. Here ... Full text Link to item Cite

Molecular genetics of AMD and current animal models.

Journal article Angiogenesis · 2007 Featured Work During the past few years systematic investigation into the epidemiology, genetics, and pathophysiology of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has provided important new insight into this leading cause of vision loss in older persons. These studies prov ... Full text Link to item Cite

Is our current clinical classification of AMD up to the job?

Other Br J Ophthalmol · September 2006 Featured Work Various combinations of risk factors and mechanisms may explain the complexity observed in AMD patients ... Full text Link to item Cite

Esterified and unesterified cholesterol in drusen and basal deposits of eyes with age-related maculopathy.

Journal article Exp Eye Res · December 2005 Featured Work To address the potential for an outer segment (OS) contribution to the sub-retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) lesions of age-related maculopathy (ARM), we quantified esterified and unesterified cholesterol (EC, UC) with the sterol-specific fluorescent probe ... Full text Link to item Cite

The fibroblast growth factor receptors, FGFR-1 and FGFR-2, mediate two independent signalling pathways in human retinal pigment epithelial cells.

Journal article Biochem Biophys Res Commun · November 11, 2005 Featured Work To examine the effects and potential implications for the expression of the two basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) receptors, FGFR-1 and FGFR-2, in retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells, bFGF-dependent changes in gene expression and RPE cell function w ... Full text Link to item Cite

Apolipoprotein E allele-dependent pathogenesis: a model for age-related retinal degeneration.

Journal article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · August 16, 2005 Featured Work Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a late-onset, multifactorial, neurodegenerative disease of the retina and the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in the elderly in the Western world. We describe here a murine model that combines three known ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lipoprotein-like particles and cholesteryl esters in human Bruch's membrane: initial characterization.

Journal article Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci · July 2005 Featured Work PURPOSE: To isolate and characterize cholesteryl ester-containing, lipoprotein-like particles (LLPs) from normal aged human Bruch's membrane (BrM)/choroid (Ch). METHODS: From BrM/Ch of 20 eyes of 10 donors aged >60 years, LLPs were released by high-salt bu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Insulin-like growth factor-1 contributes to neovascularization in age-related macular degeneration.

Journal article Biochem Biophys Res Commun · October 29, 2004 Featured Work Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is a debilitating complication of age-related macular degeneration and a leading cause of vision loss. Along with other angiogenic factors like vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Apolipoprotein B in cholesterol-containing drusen and basal deposits of human eyes with age-related maculopathy.

Journal article Am J Pathol · February 2003 Featured Work Lipids accumulate in Bruch's membrane (BrM), a specialized vascular intima of the eye, and in extracellular lesions associated with aging and age-related maculopathy (ARM). We tested the hypothesis that ARM and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease share ... Full text Link to item Cite

Dominant late-onset retinal degeneration with regional variation of sub-retinal pigment epithelium deposits, retinal function, and photoreceptor degeneration.

Journal article Ophthalmology · December 2000 Featured Work PURPOSE: To clarify the pathogenesis of late-onset retinal degeneration (L-ORD), an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by thick deposits of lipid-rich material between the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and Bruch's membrane. STUDY DESIGN: Comparat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Peripapillary chorioretinal atrophy: Bruch's membrane changes and photoreceptor loss.

Journal article Ophthalmology · February 2000 Featured Work PURPOSE: To determine relationships among Bruch's membrane ultrastructure, photoreceptor degeneration, and choriocapillaris atrophy with respect to zones of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) degeneration and atrophy adjacent to the optic nerve head, as a fu ... Full text Link to item Cite