Dr Chitra Kannabiran is a scientist pursuing basic research on the molecular genetics of eye diseases, and working at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), Hyderabad. She holds a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (1990), and was a post-doctoral fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York and at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey. Having also served as a visiting fellow at the National Eye Institute, NIH, she is a founding member of the molecular genetics laboratory at the LVPEI.
Dr Kannabiran’s expertise spans the fields of immunochemistry, molecular biology and molecular genetics. Her main research interest is in the molecular genetics of various eye diseases including corneal dystrophies, congenital cataracts and retinal degenerations, with a view to identifying disease-associated genes and their pathogenic mechanisms. This work has led to the identification of novel genes associated with some of these diseasesin Indian families.