Nearly 40 million people face blindness worldwide, including more than 1 million in the U.S. While effective treatments exist in many cases, some diseases that cause blindness, such as glaucoma, have no known cure.
Recent success at The Jackson Laboratory in delivering corrected genes directly to the mouse eye holds promise for safe and effective gene therapy for inherited eye and vision problems.
Funding will support scientific research and training activities in the field of neurodegenerative diseases of the eye, including graduate and postdoctoral fellowship training and research projects in glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and ocular signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
If scientists can prove that retinal vessels in Alzheimer's decline in a similar fashion to brain cells, an eye exam could one day be used to identify those at risk of Alzheimer's disease before dementia-like symptoms develop.