Sunday, April 26, 2009

National study is looking for Dry Macular Degeneration (AMD)patients for Landfall Eye Associates clinical trial

National study is looking for Dry Macular Degeneration (AMD)patients for Landfall Eye Associates clinical trial

April 16th, 2009

AMD patients who are interested to volunteer the Landfall Eye Associates study, will be reimbursed to cover study related transportation costs. Approximately four visits will be required of all participants.

It's a clinical study to determine if repetitive stimulation of the preferred retinal locus, the area near the central blind spot used to focus on words, letter, and object, will help in their ability to read.

The patients will be divided into two groups. One group of patients will use a medical device that looks like a computer screen and will display bright objects to stimulate the preferred retinal locus.

Participants must be able to perform the therapy twice daily for about 40 to 50 minutes each day, six times per week. The therapy will be performed in the participant’s home for approximately three months.

The other group is the control group, will not use the medical device or perform therapy. Participants will be randomly assigned to a group.

If the trial study shows the treatment with the medical device is effective, the participants who did not perform the therapy will be offered the opportunity to do so at a later date at no charge.

Source: WebWire

Landfall Eye Associates is participating in this multicenter national study sponsored by NovaVison, Inc., headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Othera reports positive interim results from Phase II dry AMD trial

Othera reports positive interim results from Phase II dry AMD trial

Published:13-April-2009

By Datamonitor staff writer

137 patients enrolled at 20 leading retinal disease treatment centers across the US

Othera Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company, has reported positive interim data from its Phase II trial of OT-551 in treating geographic atrophy, an advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration for which there is no FDA-approved treatment.

According to Othera, the 12-month findings from the two-year Omega trial suggest an emerging trend for reducing moderate vision loss in patients with geographic atrophy (GA) who were treated with OT-551 compared with placebo. This numeric trend was more pronounced in subgroups based on GA characteristics or level of visual acuity at baseline.

The Omega study is a randomized, double-masked, dose-ranging, multi-center, Phase II study of topical OT-551 in patients with GA associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Approximately 137 patients were enrolled at 20 leading retinal disease treatment centers across the US in this two-year study.

OT-551 has demonstrated a dose-dependent protective effect on photoreceptor activity in an animal model of AMD, and has been shown to reach the back of the eye after topical dosing in multiple species. This profile supports the rationale for studying the drug in patients with degenerative retinal conditions, such as GA, the company said.

Al Reaves, senior vice president of clinical development at Othera, said: "Based on these preliminary results, OT-551 continues to exhibit the excellent safety profile seen in prior studies. Given OT-551's safety profile and the positive trend on visual acuity, continued follow-up of this elderly population with GA should allow us to profile the drug's effect on visual acuity and better understand its long term safety."

Saturday, April 11, 2009

*

Feds Give Life to New Research
UCSB To Take Advantage of New Stem Cell Policy

By Sara-Fay Katz / Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Issue 100 / Volume 89

After eight years in the cold, stem cell research is poised to benefit from the open support of the Obama administration.

Under the Bush presidency, federal funding was distributed only to researchers experimenting on 21 existing stem cell lines, thus limiting developments in the field. When President Barack Obama lifted the ban on March 9, he made federal funding available for the study of new embryonic stem lines, and UCSB researchers stand to gain from his decision.

Dennis Clegg, chair of the Dept. of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, said the Bush-era ban had significantly hindered the progress of biological research for almost a decade.

“Back in 2001, President Bush said you could only use federal funding when using existing [stem cell] lines,” Clegg said. “So, it really slowed down the progress of stem cell research in the country. Now with the lifting of the ban, it will lessen the red tape associated with this kind of study and provide new funding for stem cell research.”

Clegg said new research into regenerative medicines such as stem cells has the potential to render many fatal diseases harmless, or at least make them readily treatable.

“We are in a very exciting time for stem cell research right now,” Clegg said. “Stem cell research has great potential for treating a variety of human diseases like macular degeneration, diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.”

A co-director of strategy, planning and operations at the UCSB Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering, Clegg said UCSB has the power to make major advancements in the growing field.

“We have quite a bit of exciting work going on in basic molecular biology and bioengineering, and we’re partnering with other universities and institutions to bring our findings to clinical applications,” Clegg said. “I think UCSB has unique strengths that will allow us to make a significant contribution in the field of stem cell research.”

Lincoln Johnson, associate director of the Center for the Study of Macular Degeneration, said the removal of the ban now ensures more options for the treatment of human diseases using natural mechanisms.

“Not all embryonic stem cell lines are the same,” Johnson said. “So for instance, with cardiac muscle for the treatment heart disease, one stem cell line might be better than another, so it’s important to have a variety. For regenerative medicine such as constructing organs, having a wider variety of stem cells to choose from will help better match the donor organ to the recipient.”

Despite the avenues of stem cell research opened by the Obama administration, Johnson said the field is still in its infancy.

“There’s a lot of research to be done, but having more cell lines and more funding will speed up the process,” Johnson said. “The better the research and the more people involved, the greater influence UCSB might have on policy formation.”

In addition to getting the go-ahead for more stem cell research, professor of chemical engineering Frank Doyle said UCSB has plans to open a new bioengineering building that will be suited for new developments in national research.

“We are in the planning stages of trying to set up a bioengineering building and we’re probably about four years away from realizing this dream,” Doyle said. “It would be a home to a rich range of engineers, chemists, biologists and physicists. I think what were hoping this building will be home to a big thrust of research on the campus, particularly an interface between medicine and engineering.”

For those interested in learning more about stem cell research, UCSB offers a class this quarter in Life Sciences Building 1001 - MCDB 146: Stem Cell Biology in Health and Disease taught by Professor Clegg. Students can also consult the UCSB Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering’s Web site, www.stemcell.ucsb.edu.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Brain Adapts to Age-Related Eye Disease

Brain Adapts to Age-Related Eye Disease
Neurons seek input from undamaged areas to compensate, study finds

(HealthDay News) -- When macular degeneration causes one to start losing his or her sight, the affected neurons simply start seeking visual input from other, non-affected parts of the eye, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers report.

"This study shows us one way that the brain changes when its inputs change. Neurons seem to want to receive input: When their usual input disappears, they start responding to the next best thing," senior author Nancy Kanwisher, of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, said in an university news release.

The researchers found when the cells in the fovea, the part of the retina responsible for the central field of vision, were damaged by macular degeneration (MD) -- the neuron attached to them begin responding to stimuli in an undamaged section -- a type of internal reorganization of the eye's visual map as opposed to the cortex's work being shifting to other neurons.

"Our study shows that the changes we see in neural response in people with MD are probably driven by the lack of input to a population of neurons, not by a change in visual information-processing strategy," Kanwisher said.

The findings are published in the March 4 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Macular degeneration, the most common form of adult blindness, affects almost 2 million people in the United States. Patients often compensate for lack of central vision by rolling their eyes upward so they can utilize the preferred retinal locus (PRL), an undamaged area under and adjacent to the affected part of the retina.

"Macular degeneration is a great opportunity to learn more about plasticity in the adult cortex," Kanwisher said.