“Dr. Rafal Farjo, Chief Operating Officer of eyecro, gives a seminar to Members-in-Training on Transitioning from Academia to a Start-up. At the 2013 Annual meeting of the Association for Research in vision and Ophthalmology in Seattle.”
Pathologic changes of the retina caused by diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in working adults. Diabetic retinopathy has no known cure, treatment options are inadequate, and prevention strategies offer limited protection. In the first of its kind, a report in The American Journal of Pathology describes a potential new intraocular treatment based on…
Global pharmaceutical company Allergan (NYSE:AGN) may have just revealed its plans for the future. On Aug. 11, the company announced its plan to acquire ForSight Vision5, a privately held biotech. Allergan will pay $95 million up front and will also pay a milestone payment next year if ForSight’s innovative glaucoma treatment device makes it through the…
The promising clinical results obtained for ocular gene therapy in recent years have paved the way for gene supplementation to treat recessively inherited forms of retinal degeneration. We used spliceosome-mediated RNA trans-splicing as a strategy for repairing the transcript of the rhodopsin gene, the gene most frequently mutated in autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Retinitis…
Diabetic retinopathy — an eye condition that affects people with diabetes — is the fastest growing cause of blindness, with nearly 415 million diabetic patients at risk worldwide. The disease can be treated if detected early, but if not, it can lead to irreversible blindness. A few years ago, a Google research team began studying…
New findings from a landmark clinical trial show that although certain gene variants may predict whether a person is likely to develop age-related macular degeneration (AMD), these genes do not predict how patients will respond to Lucentis™ and Avastin™, the two medications most widely used to treat the “wet” form of AMD. This new data…
Researchers increased the resistance of cells to damage by repeatedly exposing the mice to low levels of oxygen similar to those found at high altitudes. The stress of the intermittent low-oxygen environment induces a protective response called tolerance that makes nerve cells — including those in the eye — less vulnerable to harm. Stress is…