Australian donors aid breakthrough in eye disease
An Australian and United States scientific team has announced the discovery of a trigger for the commonest form of vision loss and blindness in older people in western societies.
Their findings, achieved with help from Australian eye donors, could lead to ways to treat a disease that has until now been regarded as untreatable.
The researchers reported in the current issue of the journal, Nature, their finding that a critical enzyme is lacking in patients suffering untreatable age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The team demonstrated that the enzyme DICER-1 is reduced in the eyes of those suffering the dry form of AMD, resulting in a condition which causes stress and premature death to the vision cells.
The discovery could not have been made without the generosity of Australians who donated their eyes to the Lions NSW Eye Bank so providing the critical evidence that what was seen in mouse experiments was also causing the cell death in humans with this form of AMD, says Professor Jan Provis of The Vision Centre and Australian National University.
“We’ve known for some time that cell death is the cause of dry AMD. What was not clear until now was what the mechanism was that caused the cells to die,” Professor Provis says.
Dry AMD is caused by the progressive atrophy of the macula and is the commonest form of the disease. Wet AMD is less common and is caused by overgrowth of blood vessels in the macula.
