Dr. Travis and his colleague, Dr. David Birch of the Retina Foundation of the Southwest in Dallas, found that these mice had abnormally large accumulations of fatty deposits called lipofuscin. Lipofuscin deposits are thought to be toxic to retinal cells and may well be the cause of vision loss in Stargardt disease and other forms of macular degeneration. Travis and Birch also observed that ABCR mice reared in dark environments had virtually no accumulation of lipofuscin. This important finding could mean that patients with Stargardt disease might slow the progression of vision loss by wearing sunglasses and avoiding exposure to bright light. Return to Top of Page Pharmaceutical Therapies Apoptosis or programmed cell death is a genetically controlled process that causes degenerating photoreceptor cells to die.
Apoptosis is common to all retinal degenerative diseases.
It is hoped that an understanding of apoptosis will lead to sightsaving drug therapies that prevent or delay photoreceptor cell death. Such treatments might offer a universal therapy for all retinal degenerative diseases. Dr. Alan Laties, Chairman of The Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board, and Dr. Ron Wen, both of the University of Pennsylvania, recently uncovered an agent that inhibits apoptosis. Although further work is needed, this important finding could lead to a new sightsaving pharmaceutical therapy. This is the first report of GDNF exhibiting sightsaving protection.