Author Interviews, Genetic Research, Lancet, Ophthalmology / 26.02.2025

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Michel Michaelides BSc MB BS MD(Res) FRCOphth FACS Professor of Ophthalmology and Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital     MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) is a rare inherited retinal disease (IRD) that causes the degeneration of the cone and rod cells in the retina. It is characterized by severe vision loss at birth/early infancy and is one of the commonest causes of legal blindness in childhood. There is a wide range of severity at birth/early infancy, ranging from light perception to useful central vision; with variable rate of progression over time, LCA is estimated to occur in about 1 in 33,000 people. There are more than 30 genes that cause LCA.
  • LCA associated with genetic deficiency of AIPL1 is one of the most severe forms of LCA – resulting in profound visual loss from birth (often light perception only) and rapidly progressive retinal degeneration.
  • The study sought to evaluate whether early intervention by gene supplementation therapy in children with LCA associated with AIPL1 was safe and could improve outcomes.
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Author Interviews, Ophthalmology / 30.07.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: CARL D. REGILLO, MD, FACS Carl D. Regillo, MD, FACS Chief, Retina Service Wills Eye Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for the Phase III Archway study? Would you briefly explain what Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration means?  Genentech announced in late July the results from the Phase III Archway study evaluating Port Delivery System (PDS) with ranibizumab (PDS) in people living with neovascular or “wet” age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) which showed PDS enabled 98.4% of people to go six months between treatments, while achieving vision outcomes equivalent to those receiving monthly ranibizumab eye injections, a current standard of care. AMD is a condition that affects the part of the eye that provides sharp, central vision needed for activities like reading and is a leading cause of blindness for people age 60 and over in the U.S. Neovascular AMD is an advanced form of AMD that can cause rapid and severe vision loss. Approximately 11 million people in the United States have some form of AMD and of those, about 1.1 million have nAMD.  (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Environmental Risks, Ophthalmology / 21.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Suh-Hang Hank Ju, PhD Kaohsiung Medical University Taiwan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) are 2 major traffic pollutants, which have been shown to increase a risk for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. We previously showed that chronic exposure of NO2 is also associated with dementia. age-related macula degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness. Given the increase of traffic pollutants in many urbanized cities, we investigated whether these two traffic pollutants are associated with the development of age-related macula degeneration in Taiwan. (more…)
Author Interviews, Macular Degeneration, Ophthalmology / 08.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Matthew Campbell, PhD Smurfit Institute of Genetics Trinity College Dublin Dublin MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common form of central retinal blindness in the world. However the underlying causes and initiating factors for disease progression are still not clear. It is classically a disease of the outer retina, where cells called retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells degenerate. However, our findings suggest that some of the early initiating events that promote AMD progression are actually coming from the inner retina and more specifically the microvasculature of the inner retina. We discovered that a gene called claudin-5 appears to be regulated by a circadian rhythm that in turn can regulate what gets into and out of the retina on a daily basis. Dysregulating the levels of this component made the inner retinal blood vessels marginally leaky and promoted a pathology that was AMD-like in animal models.  We also showed that the blood vessels of the retina appear to be highly dynamic in human subjects and can appear leakier at different times of the day, likely a mechanism that allows for clearance and replenishment of material into and out of the retina.  It is this process we believe breaks down in early AMD.  (more…)