Arunkumar
Venkatesan

Arunkumar Venkatesan, PhD, is a Senior Staff Scientist in the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Dr. Venkatesan’s research interests focus on unraveling the molecular mechanisms that drive protein quality control, proteostasis, and mitochondrial dysfunction in aging-related diseases. Dr. Venkatesan obtained his PhD from the University of Madras, India, and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan. He has published 12 papers in high-impact journals, including the Journal of Cell Biology, European Journal of Cell Biology, Blood Advances, and Free Radical Biology & Medicine. He serves as a reviewing editor for Frontiers in Cell & Molecular Biosciences, Frontiers in Oncology, and Frontiers in Microbiology journals in addition to his role as a reviewer for an additional 25 journals. Dr. Venkatesan has been an invited speaker at ARVO 2024 and the Cell & Experimental Biology conferences, and has received numerous travel awards from ARVO, ISER/BrightFocus, the Wellcome Trust, and the Proteomics Society of India. Dr. Venkatesan’s research in the Bernstein lab involves studying an age-related protein aggregation disease, exfoliation syndrome (XFS), a leading identifiable cause of open-angle glaucoma (XFG). He has recently discovered that, in addition to proteostasis defects, microtubule and mitochondrial dysfunctions are also involved in the pathogenesis of XFG disease. Dr. Venkatesan continues to investigate protein aggregation and mitochondrial dysfunction in XFG, with the intention of developing novel therapeutics. His research is supported by the BrightFocus Foundation and The Glaucoma Foundation.