Abstract
Presentation Description :
Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is a challenging disease to study due to the unique characteristics of the human eye, including the presence of a macula found only in primates, as well as the lengthy timeframe of >60 years to develop. Importantly, no animal model can faithfully recapitulate these features, further limiting our capacity to study disease mechanism. Our strategy has been to analyze human donor eyes graded for their stage of AMD, which has allowed us to capture key features of the disease. Results from our proteomic analysis and measures of mtDNA damage of the retina has provided solid evidence that the mitochondria is an early site of defect in the retinal pigment epithelium and thus, is a potential target for intervention.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.