Sandeep Gopalakrishnan MS, PhD, DAPWCA

Dr. Sandeep Gopalakrishnan is an Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He received his MS in Clinical Laboratory Sciences and Ph.D. in Health Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee followed by postdoctoral training at the Cardiovascular Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Dr. Gopalakrishnan is a Diplomate (DAPWCA) and the Secretary of the American Professional Wound Care Association and an active member of the Wound Healing Society and McPherson Eye Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Gopalakrishnan teaches pathophysiology and genetics to undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. Gopalakrishnan directs the Biobehavioral Research Laboratory at UW-Milwaukee. Prior to joining UWM, Dr. Gopalakrishnan was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. David Harder at the Cardiovascular Center, Medical College of Wisconsin where his research focused on identifying the role of autoregulation in cerebral blood flow. For his doctoral research at UWM, Dr. Gopalakrishnan investigated the use of near-infrared photons in the treatment of retinal degeneration using animal models of retinitis pigmentosa (RP) under the guidance of Dr. Janis Eells. His current studies are designed to understand the renoprotective effects of PBM at the cellular and molecular level using widely studied animal models of retinal degeneration, and establish the use of PBM as an innovative, non-invasive therapeutic approach for the treatment of retinal degenerative diseases.

A growing body of evidence indicates that exposure of tissue to low-energy photon irradiation in the far-red to near-infrared (NIR) range of the spectrum, collectively termed “photobiomodulation” (PBM / NIR-PBM), can act on mitochondria-mediated signaling pathways to preserve mitochondrial function, attenuate oxidative stress, stimulate the production of cytoprotective factors and prevent cell death. Dr. Gopalakrishnan’s research focuses on evaluating the therapeutic potential of PBM / NIR-PBM in inherited and induced retinal degeneration.