Growing up, Samantha Bradford always liked math and science. “I knew I wanted to do something in a medical field, but I still wanted to be able to do the math and science, so research was perfect for me,” she says.
Armed with a bachelor’s degree in biological engineering from the University of Missouri, Bradford earned her doctor of philosophy in biomedical engineering at UC Irvine. For the past five years, she has been working in the lab of DEF-funded researcher Dr. James Jester, the Jack H. Skirball Endowed Research Chair and professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Gavin Herbert Eye Institute at UC Irvine.
Bradford is part of a research group that has developed a new corneal crosslinking device that uses lasers to stiffen the corneal tissue of people with keratoconus. The novel two-photon device allows doctors to “focus really tightly and treat specific areas. It is a lot more targeted than other methods using UVA light,” she says. “With our method, we don’t have to remove the epithelium, so it means less pain, faster healing and less damage overall for patients.”
As the project continues toward building the device for use on humans in the clinic, Bradford relishes her role in the lab: “It’s different every day and never monotonous. One day, I’m working with animals, the next day I’m playing with lasers, the next I’m working with computers. It’s just fun.”
