Month: March 2014

The answer to teaching a legally
blind child in a South Carolina public classroom traditionally has been
large-print books and materials for that child’s use. Results from a study
conducted by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Storm Eye
Institute’s (SEI) Feldberg Center and the South Carolina School for the
Deaf and Blind (SCSDB) suggests that optical aids work better in improving
the reading abilities and skills of visually impaired children than
large-print books.

“An optical aid designed for each individual student’s level of impairment
seems to hold more promise in helping each student reach his or her
maximum level of performance,” said* *Stephen Morse, O.D., Ph.D., SEI
Feldberg Center for Vision Rehabilitation director.

Project Magnify tested the idea that visually impaired students who use
magnification devices for reading will perform as well or better than
visually impaired students using large print reading material. The project’s
success in its pilot format has resulted in a commitment from the South
Carolina Department of Education to bring low-vision examinations and
visual devices, with training in the use of the devices conducted by
teachers of the visually impaired, to groups of 20 students each academic
year through at least 2010.

Jeanie Farmer, SCSDB Vision Instruction coordinator, said, “Since 2005, 19
students in 11 South Carolina school districts have demonstrated
tremendous gains in reading abilities as well as greater independence and
confidence in home and community activities. Thirty students will have an
opportunity to benefit from the program during the 2007-2008 school year.”

In the current study, students in the experimental group had low-vision
devices prescribed by a low-vision doctor and read standard
grade-level-sized print with their magnifiers. Students in the control
group received large print reading materials. All students took oral and
silent reading tests at the beginning and end of the 2005-2006 school
year, and their reading rates were recorded. Of the students using the
magnification devices, all increased their reading rate; approximately
half showed an increase in reading comprehension, and most decreased the
reading font size required to see the text. Those who did not receive the
magnification devices and who used large-print books continued to read at
their respective font sizes by the end of the year; no one in that group
increased reading comprehension; and only a handful of students increased
their reading rate when compared with the experimental group.

The study findings lend evidence to the concept that one size does not fit
all when it comes to large-print books. “Large print may be fine for one
visually impaired student, but significantly too small for another, and
way too big for yet a third,” Farmer said.

Books are only part of the everyday struggle for children with low-vision
who seek education in the same environment as their normal-sighted peers,
as these children often struggle to copy things from the board, find the
right bus in the bus line and correctly measure the chemicals in a science
laboratory experiment. In addition, the costs are high to enlarge color
photos, graphs, charts and other instructional tools that teachers provide
for their classes. According to Jill Ischinger, the director of the South
Carolina Instructional Resource Center, the cost of providing a set of
books to students each year is approximately $2,237 per student.

About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, The Medical University of South Carolina is
the oldest medical school in the South. Today, MUSC continues the
tradition of excellence in education, research, and patient care. MUSC
educates and trains more than 3,000 students and residents, and has nearly
10,000 employees, including 1,300 faculty members. As the largest
non-federal employer in Charleston, the university and its affiliates have
collective annual budgets in excess of $1.3 billion. MUSC operates a
600-bed medical center, which includes a nationally recognized Children’s
Hospital, a leading Institute of Psychiatry, and a world renowned Storm
Eye Institute. For more information on academic information or clinical
services, visit musc.edu or muschealth.

The prestigious 2008 Mectizan® Award, awarded by global pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. , Inc. in recognition of the efforts of an individual in the fight to eliminate river blindness, has been awarded to Catherine Cross, a consultant on international programmes at leading blindness organisation, Sightsavers International.

Catherine Cross was nominated for the award by her peers in global public health in recognition of her important contributions and sustained leadership in the fight against the potentially blinding condition of onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness.

Ken Gustavsen, Director, Global Health Partnerships, Merck & Co., Inc. commented: “We congratulate Catherine Cross on her selection for this award. Her unique vision and commitment are an example to all those dedicated to the success of the Mectizan donation program.”

River blindness, transmitted through the bite of the black simulium fly which breeds in fast-flowing rivers, can result in serious skin disease including intolerable and constant itching, and can lead to permanent loss of vision. The onset of blindness tends to affect people in their thirties and forties at their most productive time of life. Many children in affected communities miss out on education because they have to act as full-time carers to older relatives.

Catherine has worked at Sightsavers for over 15 years, heading up Sightsavers’ work with partners to distribute the medicine Mectizan®, donated by Merck & Co., Inc., to those at risk across Africa.

It is estimated that as many as one million people are blind or severely visually impaired through river blindness. Another 18 million people are currently believed to be infected. But it is a disease that potentially can be eliminated as a public health problem with proper community-level treatment programmes. Last year, Sightsavers supported the treatment of 20 million adults and children in 12 African countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Mali.

Catherine has been working with international networks and organisations, such as the World Bank and the World Health Organisation as well as governments, NGOs, and the private sector, to achieve the goal of eliminating river blindness by the year 2020.

Catherine Cross commented on her award: “I am delighted to be nominated for this Award. It really celebrates the achievements of Sightsavers’ staff and partners over two decades. The award is in recognition of this.”

Catherine received her award on 7th October at a ceremony at the Imperial College, London.

Notes

1. There are 45 million blind people in the world; 75% of all blindness can be prevented or cured.

2. Sightsavers International is a registered UK charity (number 207544 England & Wales, Scotland SC038110) that works in more than 30 developing countries to prevent blindness, restore sight and advocate for inclusion and equal rights for people who are blind and visually impaired. sightsavers

3. Merck & Co., Inc. operates as Merck Sharp & Dohme Ltd, or MSD, in the UK.

75% of all blindness around the world could be easily avoided, 90% of children who are blind don’t go to school. Sightsavers is working through local organisations to change this. Join us sightsavers

Sightsavers International

Fireworks are one of the highlights of the Fourth of July holiday. However in the blink of an eye, a mistake can tragically turn their beauty into permanent injury, eye damage or blindness. According to the Centers for Disease control, an estimated 9-thousand people were rushed to emergency room for injuries related to fireworks accidents in 2006.Adults are not the only ones injured from these kinds of accidents. One out of every three people hurt was a child under 15. More boys than girls are injured.

Bottle rockets, roman candles and sparklers accounted for most of the burns, wounds and “shrapnel.” Most of the problems were to the hands, then eyes and finally the face. In many cases, permanent scarring occurred.

Of those injuries, nearly 1,500 were eye related in the same one month timeframe.

“Fireworks can cause painful eye injuries such as corneal burns or corneal abrasions,” explains Gerami D Seitzman, M.D., an ophthalmologist at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. “They can also cause blindness if an explosive particle were to travel into the eye and damage the delicate structures required for sight.”

The best thing you can do is let professionals set off the fireworks and watch the display from at least a quarter-of-a-mile away.

“However, if the worst happens and someone suffers an eye-related injury, do not attempt to remove a foreign body from the eye,” warns Dr. Seitzman. “It is best to simply cover the eye with a shield or sunglasses and immediately take the person to the emergency room.”

Source:
LifeBridge Health

By using simultaneous brain stimulation and activity recording to track the influence of one brain region on another, researchers have developed a new method for boosting brain function that may have implications for treatments of brain disorders and for improving vision. The findings are reported by Christian Ruff, Jon Driver, and their colleagues at University College London and appear in the August issue of Current Biology, published by Cell Press.

In their new work, the researchers used trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to trigger a chain of activity in specific parts of the brain, while the activity was measured with a scanner. In this way, they were able to show that stimulating a particular region of the frontal cortex that is normally involved in generating eye movements can change activity in visual cortex, almost as though an eye movement had been made (even though the eye itself stayed still).

Perceptual tests confirmed that this brain stimulation had the effect of enhancing peripheral vision, as if people could now see better out of the corner of their eye.

Brain stimulation with TMS is beginning to be used in the treatment of various neurological conditions, including those, such as the after-effects of a stroke, that can impair vision. The technical breakthrough reported by the UCL group means that it is now possible to study the underlying brain activity triggered by TMS, both in the healthy brain and in patients with brain damage.

The researchers include Christian C. Ruff, Felix Blankenburg, Otto Bjoertomt, Sven Bestmann, Elliot Freeman, Geraint Rees, Oliver Josephs, Ralf Deichmann, and Jon Driver of the University College London in London, United Kingdom; John-Dylan Haynes of Max-Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany.

This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Research Council, and the Medical Research Council (UK). J.D. holds a Royal-Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award.

Ruff et al.: “Concurrent TMS-fMRI and Psychophysics Reveal Frontal Influences on Human Retinotopic Visual Cortex.” Publishing in Current Biology 16, 1479-1488, August 8, 2006, DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2006.06.057 current-biology/

Related Dispatch by Kayser et al.: “Vision: Stimulating Your Attention.”

Contact: Heidi Hardman
Cell Press

Planning for a summer delivery for your child? You might want to choose an ophthalmologist along with an obstetrician.

If your child is born in the winter or fall, it will have better long-range eyesight throughout its lifetime and less chance of requiring thick corrective glasses, predicts a Tel Aviv University investigation led by Dr. Yossi Mandel, a senior ophthalmologist in the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps.

Forming a large multi-center Israeli team, the scientists took data on Israeli youth aged 16-23 and retroactively correlated the incidence of myopia (short-sightedness) with their month of birth. The results were astonishing. Babies born in June and July had a 24% greater chance of becoming severely myopic than those born in December and January — the group with the least number of severely myopic individuals. The investigators say that this evidence is likely applicable to babies born anywhere in the world.

The results of the study were published this month in the clinical eye journal Ophthalmology. The team interpolated data from a sample size of almost 300,000 young adults, making it one of the largest epidemiological surveys carried out in the world on any subject.

Is this great disparity in eyesight related to one’s luck or astrological sign? “Nonsense,” balks study co-author Prof. Michael Belkin of Tel Aviv University’s Goldschleger Eye Research Institute, the most prominent eye research organization in Israel and the region. Belkin is also Incumbent to the Fox Chair of Ophthalmology and one of the founders and first director of the Goldschleger Institute, established more than 25 years ago at the Sheba Medical Center. In November Prof. Belkin will attend the annual American Academy of Ophthalmology conference in New Orleans, La.

“It is probably a long-term effect of early-life exposure to natural light that increases the chances of a child becoming short-sighted,” he says. “I am speaking about those people who would have to wear very thick glasses, if they did not use contact lenses or laser surgery for the removal of spectacles.”

A more thorough laboratory analysis of myopia in young chickens suggested that the body has a mechanism that causes the eyeball to lengthen (short-sighted eyes are longer than normal) when it is exposed to prolonged illumination. This mechanism is associated with melatonin, a pigment secreted by the pineal gland, though scientists are not sure exactly how it operates. This is the same gland that sets our body’s internal clock or permits it to participate in “Circadian rhythms.”

“We know that sunlight affects the pineal gland and we have indications that melatonin, through other compounds, is involved in regulating eye length,” says Belkin. “More sun equals less melatonin, equals a longer eye which is short sighted.”

Belkin doesn’t identify any evolutionary benefit for extreme myopia in summer babies. “People with longer eyes who lived in the period prior to the invention of eyeglasses were severely disadvantaged and restricted to a few professions or doomed to death.” Nowadays, however, shortsightedness has its advantages, Belkin says, pointing out a strong correlation between myopia and intelligence.

Belkin scientifically demonstrated this correlation 20 years ago. “It is not a myth at all that people who wear pop-bottle glasses are smarter. They tend to be,” he argues.

Though involved in this recent research regarding myopia, Belkin’s main research subject is lasers and their application for curing eye disease. “I am studying the effects of lasers on eyes: How to prevent accidental injuries and how to develop lasers for treatment of eye diseases such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration — the leading causes of blindness.”

Every young eye doctor in Israel is required to complete six months of residency in a research setting and the location of choice is usually the Goldschleger Institute, located outside the university campus in the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer Hospital. Many of the region’s accomplished eye surgeons have worked at the center.

Source: George Hunka

American Friends of Tel Aviv University

What is the very best way to learn a complex task? Is it practice, practice, practice, or is watching and thinking enough to let you imitate a physical activity, such as skiing or ballet? A new study from Brandeis University published this week in the Journal of Vision unravels some of the mysteries surrounding how we learn to do things like tie our shoes, feed ourselves, or perform dazzling dance steps.

“What makes one person clumsy and the next person a prima ballerina is a combination of talent and practice,” explains study co-author Robert Sekuler a neuroscientist at Brandeis” Volen Center for Complex Systems. “We are trying to determine what strategies will optimize imitation learning, which is crucial for acquiring many of the skills used in daily life. A lot of what we do we learn by watching and imitating others.”

The study provides a first detailed look into explicit learning of sequential, non-verbal material. While many studies have evaluated serial recall of words, researchers have paid little attention to imitation learning, even though such learning is crucial to just about everything we do, from sports to regaining mobility after a stroke or accident.

“This study demonstrates that we can learn much better just by watching than previously thought, but it also suggests that there is more than meets the eye,” says Yigal Agam, a neuroscience graduate student and study co-author. “Next we need to really understand how to optimize non-verbal imitative learning – to make that learning as fast, easy and painless as possible.”

The study evaluated participants” ability to view, remember and then reproduce a complex sequence of motions generated by the random, unpredictable movements of a disc. Even a single repetition of a motion sequence substantially reduced errors in reproduction. To test how important it was to actually reproduce the motion, Sekuler and his colleagues compared the participants” performance when they reproduced the motion after each viewing to when they did so only once, after the final viewing, and otherwise just carefully observed and thought about the motion. Interestingly, performance was the same. Seeing the motion, without actually imitating it, was enough to learn it.

But leveraging a learner”s attention to the task at hand is also critically important. “It”s not simply a question of information falling on the retina – this kind of learning is a skill of acquiring information, transforming it into output, which is the imitation,” says Agam.

Several strategies may help leverage a learner”s attention and motivate imitative learning. Organizing the motor skill practice is key. For example, Sekuler, an expert on the neural and cognitive terrain of visual memory, says that breaking down a behavioral sequence into chunks can aid imitation learning, just as chunking can help us memorize a string of seemingly unrelated digits or other material. Agam and Sekuler have their sights set on identifying strategies that teachers and coaches could use to make complex actions more “chunkable,” and therefore easier to imitate.

For example, to promote chunking (and learning), a complex behavior can be paused at just the right time, which will help the novice viewer more easily appreciate and imitate the separate components of that behavior. The researchers” long-term goal is to devise simple methods that will allow teachers and coaches to take any arbitrary complex action that they want to teach – like that series of dance steps or that perfect golf swing, and then re-package that action into components that make for optimal learning.

The study was supported by grants from The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Contact: Laura Gardner

Brandeis University

Glaucoma is a silent illness; most people have no early symptoms and do not notice as their peripheral vision diminishes or blind spots occur. The disease affects more than 2.3 million Americans age 40 and older. Another 2 million do not know they have the disease. January is Glaucoma Awareness Month, and through the EyeSmart™ Campaign, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and EyeCareAmerica, a public service program of the Foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, want to remind people that knowing your risk for the disease can save your sight. If untreated, glaucoma ultimately results in blindness.

“Glaucoma can be a ‘sneak thief’ illness, and currently there is no treatment to restore vision once it’s lost,” said Kuldev Singh, MD, MPH, Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of the Glaucoma Service at Stanford University School of Medicine, and clinical correspondent for the Academy. “But when we catch glaucoma early and closely monitor and treat people, we can significantly slow its progression and minimize vision loss.”

Because glaucoma is a leading cause of preventable blindness, the American Glaucoma Society and the Glaucoma Research Foundation are joining the Academy and EyeCare America in urging Americans to know their risks for the disease.

Among Americans, higher risk groups include those of African or Hispanic heritage and others with a family history of the illness. Elderly individuals with African ancestry are five times more likely to develop glaucoma and 14 to 17 times more likely to become blind than similar aged individuals with European ancestry. The risk for Hispanic Americans rises markedly after age 60. Those of any ethnicity who have a family history of the illness are four to nine times more susceptible.

A national survey commissioned in 2007 by the Academy for the EyeSmart campaign found that only 24 percent of people in ethnic groups at higher risk for glaucoma were aware of their risk, and only 16 percent of those with a family history of eye disease, including glaucoma, could correctly identify the risk factors for those diseases.

Other glaucoma risk factors include aging, nearsightedness, previous eye injuries, steroid use, and health conditions including cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, and migraine headache.

For individuals with symptoms of or at risk for eye diseases like glaucoma, the Academy recommends that they see their ophthalmologist to determine how frequently their eyes should be examined. The Academy recommends that those with no symptoms or risk factors for eye disease get a baseline screening at age 40 when the signs of disease and change in vision may start to occur.

About Glaucoma

Glaucoma damages the optic nerve, the part of the eye that carries the images we see to the brain. As glaucoma worsens, cells die in the retina-a special, light-sensitive area of the eye-reducing the optic nerve’s ability to relay visual information to the brain. In the most common form of the disease, open-angle glaucoma, peripheral vision usually narrows, then other blank spots occur in the visual field. Symptoms of the less common but more acutely dangerous form of the disease, closed-angle glaucoma, include blurred vision, severe eye pain and headache, rainbow-colored halos around lights, and nausea and vomiting. Anyone with these symptoms needs to be seen by an Eye M.D. right away.

Source:

American Academy of Ophthalmology

Current patterns of glaucoma care and treatment are a cost-effective way to slow or prevent vision loss and should be continued, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International, Duke University, Harvard University and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

Glaucoma, which affects more than 4 million Americans, is a group of eye diseases caused by damage to the optic nerve, which carries images from the eye to the brain. Previous research has established that screening was effective in detecting glaucoma and preventing the disease’s progression. However, no research had linked these impacts to cost-effective improvements in the patient’s visual functionality and quality of life.

The study, published in the May issue of Ophthalmology (the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology), found that routine patient assessment for glaucoma during scheduled visits to an eye care provider followed by the treatment of patients with detectable symptoms of glaucoma was cost-effective even when the entire costs of the eye assessment was attributed to glaucoma and when a conservative impact of treatment was assumed.

Treatments were highly cost-effective when the costs of diagnostic assessments were excluded or when optimistic treatment efficacy was assumed.

“Of course routine eye assessments detect more than just glaucoma,” said David Rein, Ph.D., a senior research economist at RTI and the study’s lead author. “Eye examinations can capture a wide range of possible visual problems from improperly corrected refractive error to cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, and other diseases that are more likely to occur as a patient ages.”

The researchers used a computer model to simulate glaucoma incidence, natural progression, diagnosis and treatment of 20 million people followed from age 50 years to death or age 100 years. They found that the cost-effective ratio, even when based on conservative efficacy, compared favorably with cost-effectiveness standards set by the World Health Organization.

“Our findings support the cost-effectiveness of the glaucoma treatment recommendations outlined in the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Preferred Practice Patterns.” Rein said. “We had the same conclusion even in alternative scenarios where we varied the costs, efficacy, and impact of treatment.”

The study was funded by CDC.

About RTI International

RTI International is one of the world s leading research institutes, dedicated to improving the human condition by turning knowledge into practice. Our staff of more than 2,800 provides research and technical expertise to governments and businesses in more than 40 countries in the areas of health and pharmaceuticals, education and training, surveys and statistics, advanced technology, international development, economic and social policy, energy and the environment, and laboratory and chemistry services.

Source: RTI International

Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISPH) announced that DIQUASTM Ophthalmic Solution 3% (diquafosol tetrasodium) received pricing approval and was launched for sale today in Japan by its partner, Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Inspire will receive a related milestone payment of $1.25 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 and is also entitled to receive payments based upon a tiered royalty rate on net sales of DIQUAS in Japan, with a minimum rate in the high single digits and a maximum rate in the low double digits.

“We are pleased that DIQUAS is now available as a new treatment option for dry eye patients in Japan,” said Adrian Adams, President and CEO of Inspire. “We are completing this year with continued strong operational momentum. In addition to the DIQUAS launch and milestone payment, as a result of our prudent cash flow management throughout 2010, we recently paid off our term loan facility and expect to end the year with a strong balance sheet with no debt. This provides a solid foundation as we enter a potentially transformational year in 2011, beginning with the anticipated first quarter release of results from TIGER-2, our second Phase 3 trial of denufosol tetrasodium for cystic fibrosis.”

Pursuant to an agreement between the companies, Santen may develop and commercialize diquafosol tetrasodium for the therapeutic treatment of ocular surface diseases, such as dry eye disease, in Japan and nine other Asian countries. Diquafosol tetrasodium is currently in Phase 3 clinical testing by Santen in China.

Source:

Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

An international research team including scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and the Galveston-based spinoff Neurobiotex, Inc. has found high levels of zinc in deposits in the eye that are an indication of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) – the leading cause of blindness in the elderly in the developed world.

The finding, published this month in the journal Experimental Eye Research, contributes to a better understanding of AMD and could facilitate the development of effective treatments, said UTMB ophthalmologist Erik van Kuijk, senior author of the study.

AMD is a form of macular disease that affects the eye’s central retina and afflicts millions of people (30 percent of them over 75 years old) in the United States alone. It is associated with defects of retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPE), the failure of which leads to progressive loss of vision. Despite the potentially devastating impact on patients’ quality of life, no successful therapy to stop or reverse the progression of AMD is available in the majority of cases.

An early sign and a presumed trigger of the eye disease is the formation of microscopic plaques, called “drusen,” in the eye. Exactly what these plaque-like drusen do and why they form is not yet fully understood, the researchers noted. “We have discovered that the drusen in the eyes of those with AMD have very high levels of zinc,” said van Kuijk, associate professor in the UTMB Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.

Zinc previously had been shown to contribute to the formation of brain plaques in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, so van Kuijk said it was logical for him and his colleagues to test the idea that zinc might also contribute to the formation of the plaque-like drusen in the eye. He said they did so using a reagent called ZP-1 that was developed by Dr. Christopher Frederickson at Neurobiotex, Inc. in Galveston. Frederickson suggested that AMD can be considered “the Alzheimer’s disease of the eye,” in that both disorders involve the aggregation of misfolded amyloid proteins and metals like zinc and copper into microscopic clumps called plaques.

“What is particularly important is that within the zinc we found a small pool – about 5 to 10 percent – of what is known as ‘free’ or ‘loosely bound’ zinc,” van Kuijk explained. “Generally, zinc is essential to keeping a molecule’s shape, but mobilized zinc can cause lots of problems. However, since it is a small proportion of the overall zinc pool, it’s straightforward to target it. That’s what researchers are beginning to do with Alzheimer’s disease by developing methodologies and drugs that can capture this mobilized zinc and see if doing that slows down the degenerative process. This study shows that we could now potentially take a similar route for AMD treatment.”

The researchers looked at eyes procured by the Montana Eye Bank from deceased patients with AMD that contained several large sub-RPE deposits and compared them to postmortem eyes from a similar age group that had no known eye disease and no deposits in the macula. They analyzed these using zinc-sensing molecules like ZP-1, which glow when they bind with zinc. These “glowing molecules” bind only to the free or loosely bound zinc, which is particularly crucial in causing disease.

Although total blindness almost never occurs as a result of AMD, a central portion of vision is lost, van Kuijk noted. This means that the condition can cause serious problems with reading, recognizing people, seeing small objects and driving. The disease is more common in women than in men. Common risk factors are family history and smoking. There are two forms of AMD – dry and wet. Dry AMD means visual cells simply stop functioning, whereas wet AMD is linked to new vessel growth and is the more aggressive form of the disease. Currently there is no treatment for dry AMD, but there has been considerable progress in treating wet AMD, including use of new drugs like Avastin and Lucentis that stop new vessel growth. However, these are only suitable for patients with advanced disease, their effects are often temporary, and they carry the risk of adverse reactions.

“The pioneering work by Dr. van Kuijk and his colleagues is an important development in our understanding of AMD” said Dr Michael Boulton, director of the new Macular Degeneration Center at UTMB. “The possibility of targeting zinc to stop or reverse drusen growth is important because doing so has the potential to arrest the progression of AMD early, before irreversible damage to the retinal cells occurs.”

“A treatment for AMD is desperately needed as the disease affects up to 7 million Americans,” Boulton continued. “This equates to 2,000 AMD sufferers here on Galveston Island.”

The work was in part supported by donations from Galvestonians Dr. and Mrs. Robert Wilkins and Jamaica Beach resident Sidney Wolfenson.

The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston Public Affairs Office
utmb.edu/

Contact: Jim Kelly

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

View drug information on Avastin; Lucentis.