I am a professor of Ophthalmology and my resarch focus is centered on the extraocular muscles. Research is my passion and the reason I came to Sweden from Portugal more than 30 years ago.
My research focuses mainly on the extraocular muscles (EOMs), the effectors for ocular motility. These muscles have physiological properties that separate them from other muscles, not least their distinct behavior in disease, in particular their relative insensitivity in muscular dystrophies. The main goals are to understand how the unusual molecular composition of the EOMs may contribute to their resistance to muscular dystrophies and to identify novel approaches to optimize the effect of strabismus surgery. These are important goals, since there are no good therapeutic tools to help patients with muscular dystrophies. The outcome of strabismus surgery is often unsatisfactory with very high re-operation rates, important economic burden and loss of quality of life.