When graduate student Raiyan Zaman makes a promise, she keeps her word.
As a child, Zaman’s grandfather, a respected educator who taught English and history in Bangladesh, lost his vision from ocular disease. For the last nine years of his life, his optic nerve was useless, leaving him unable to see anything. Zaman promised that when she grew up, she would make it so that he could see again.
“I wondered why he couldn’t see,” she says. “I used to sit with him, read to him…the funny thing is, he taught me English. I promised him that when I grow up, I will do something so that you can see.”
Zaman’s grandfather passed when she was in ninth grade, and she went on to study electrical engineering in college. She graduated and worked for several years, and one day, out of the blue, it hit her: She hadn’t kept her promise.
“(I thought), it’s time for me to go back and do research,” she said.
And she did just that.
Zaman, now a graduate student working toward a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, is researching an alternative method of treating Age-Related Macular Degeneration, a condition that causes loss of vision, often in older adults.
Zaman says that traditional treatment for the disease is invasive and painful, so many patients stop altogether because it is agonizing. However, Zaman and others in her lab are working on a less painful and more affordable treatment for age-related macular degeneration.
“The current statistics are very scary,” says Zaman. “In 2004, 1.5 million people were diagnosed, and there will be three million by 2020. It’s a huge burden for society…also, the current treatment is so painful—a big needle in your eye; I don’t think I could go through that!”
The primary goal of this project, which began last year, is to investigate a novel drug delivery device implanted in the eye, which they believe will be much better for patients. Zaman says this new research is vital for people suffering from Age-Related Macular Degeneration.
“It’s very, very important for research to be done,” says Zaman. “We are hoping our research will go mainstream and people can use it as a better method for treating this crazy disease.”
“(It is) because of my grandfather that I am doing this…(because of) how lonely he used to feel. He was an educator, but if you can’t see, how does it feel? That’s why I am studying Biomedical Engineering.”
