RESEARCH
15 Projects in Advanced Glaucoma Research
In EGRET-AAA, we will produce innovative treatments to protect and restore vision in patients with progressive eye disease glaucoma. By using revolutionary human retinal organoids, we will accelerate the development of new treatments and bring gene therapy and stem cell-based approaches a major step closer to clinical implementation, while minimizing the need for animal research.
Through our findings, we will be able to protect the regenerated eye-brain connections and develop diagnostic techniques to select patients suitable for treatment and to evaluate intervention effects. By doing so, we will ultimately save approximately 1 million Europeans from blindness, and another 5 million from significant vision loss, thereby increasing their quality of life, and dramatically reducing societal and health care costs.
In order to achieve this aim, our research is structured in the following three Work Packages:
EMERGING THERAPIES IN ADVANCED GLAUCOMA: STEM CELL AND GENE THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES
In this Work Package, four projects will work on furthering gene and stem cell-based treatment for advanced glaucoma using human retinal organoids.
PROJECT 1
Experimental Regenerative Medicine: Stem Cell-derived Ganglion Cell Replacement Therapy in Glaucoma Models
PROJECT 2
Functional Assessment of Glaucoma Candidate Disease Genes using Genetically Modified Retinal Organoids
PROJECT 3
Retinal axon pathfinding: cellular events controlled by subcellular compartment-restricted second messengers
PROJECT 4
Intrinsic mechanisms that drive axon guidance at the optic chiasm
HEALTHY RETINAL ENVIRONMENT: NEUROPROTECTION AND OXYGEN DELIVERY
In this Work Package, five projects will work on developing new methods to offer remaining and new ganglion cells a healthy environment in terms of oxygen delivery and neuroprotection.
PROJECT 5
From GWAS to neuroprotective pathways
PROJECT 6
Mechanisms of Retinal ganglion cells/glial cells uncoupling by glaucoma associated stress and their association with neuronal cell death
PROJECT 7
The role of retinal Mononuclear Phagocytes and Macroglia cells in retinal ischemia
PROJECT 8
Multimodal assessment of retinal function in end-stage glaucoma
PROJECT 9
Multimodal imaging of retinal perfusion
EMERGING QUANTITATIVE ASSESMENT OF STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION IN ADVANCED GLAUCOMA
In this Work Package six projects will work on developing new techniques to assess changes in retinal and visual pathway structure and function in advanced glaucoma.
PROJECT 10
Eye movement-based evaluation of visual function in advanced glaucoma
PROJECT 11
Functional assessment in advanced glaucoma
PROJECT 12
OCT in advanced glaucoma: analysis of retinal tissue properties using deep learning
PROJECT 13
Structural MRI-based assessment of the visual pathways in late-stage glaucoma
PROJECT 14
fMRI-based assessment of connectivity in the visual cortex in advanced glaucoma
PROJECT 15
Cortical plasticity in advanced glaucoma with 7T fMRI