A new class of therapeutics which activate intrinsic biological stress-resilience mechanisms could be used to treat age-related and inherited retinal diseases, said US researchers.
Led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, the research team identified universal molecular mechanisms across various models of retinal degeneration, characterised by impaired physiological resilience to stress. Specifically, they found the pharmacological inhibition of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs), which help regulate cell-signalling pathways, enhanced resilience to acute and chronic forms of stress in the degenerating retina and preserved tissue structure and function, they said.
Two of the study’s authors, Dr Jennings Luu and Dr Krzysztof Palczewski, have now founded pharmaceutical company Hyperion Therapeutics to commercialise their findings and develop new agents to treat conditions such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and retinitis pigmentosa.
