Researchers Discover Small-Molecule Drugs with Potential Clinical Utility in the Treatment of Retinal Diseases

In a University of California, Irvine-led study, researchers have discovered small-molecule drugs with potential clinical utility in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), and retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

The study, titled, “Stress resilience-enhancing drugs preserve tissue structure and function in degenerating retina via phosphodiesterase inhibition,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“In this study, we introduce a new class of therapeutics called ‘Stress Resilience-Enhancing Drugs’ (SREDs), for the treatment of neurodegenerative conditions, specifically the world’s leading causes of blindness in age-related and inherited retinal diseases,” said Krzysztof Palczewski, PhD, Donald Bren Professor of Ophthalmology at the UCI School of Medicine and corresponding author on the study. “Through selective, pharmacological inhibition of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases, our prototypical SREDs slowed or halted the development and progression of retinopathies in a number of genetic and environmental animal models.”

To read the full UCI news release, click here.