Dr. Abigail Conrad

Area of study: Division of Biology
Email: aconrad@ksu.edu
Website: Homepage

“Extracellular matrix is a mixture of protein and sugars that cover many cells and are important for their interactions. The cornea is the part of your skin that covers the front of your eye. It has much the same extracellular matrix molecules in it as your skin does, but it arranges them differently into a very regular grid work, so that your cornea is transparent, does not allow blood vessels to invade it, and does not form cancers itself. Recent data suggest that preventing blood vessels from invading some cancer tumors can stop or significantly retard their growth. We study extracellular matrix keratan sulfate proteoglycans, which are enriched in the cornea, and ask how these macromolecules function in tissues to allow some cells to invade that matrix while others cannot.”