Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible visual impairment in the elderly population. AMD is a devastating disease that affects 11 million Americans, and this number is expected to double in the next 20 years. The number of people living with macular degeneration is expected to reach 288 million worldwide by 2040. The estimated annual economic billion, of which AMD is a major proportion. In the early stages of AMD, drusen accumulate between the retinal pigment epithelium and Bruchs membrane, compromising cell function and leading to oxidative stress, inflammation, and a maladaptive immune response. Notably, large drusen are associated with an increased risk of developing severe AMD, namely, neovascular or wet AMD and geographic atrophy or dry AMD. While treatment is effective for the wet form of AMD, despite our growing understanding of the genetics and pathophysiology of AMD, there are no therapies for the dry form. To overcome this problem, our studies seek to understand how little vesicles, called exosomes -also known as extracellular vesicles (EVs), secreted by cells and containing many cellular bioproducts, contribute to drusen formation and AMD progression. Due to the exosomes capacity to travel through different biofluids such as blood, tears, and saliva, and since their cargo changes under pathological conditions, exosomes could give us the key to diagnosing AMD early and successfully treating it.
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