US funding to research retinal disease
Dr David Ackerley from Victoria University’s School of Biological Science is part of a team awarded a US$500,000 Falk Medical Research Trust grant to develop new models of retinal degenerative disease—–a major cause of human blindness.
Dr Ackerley will work alongside Dr Val Canto-Soler and Dr Jeff Mumm from the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA, to build an artificial retina of the human eye that mimics degenerative disease.
“My lab group will be developing genetic methods to enable very precise killing of specific cells in the artificial retina to permit study of how they regenerate, and facilitate discovery of drugs that assist with this process,” says Dr Ackerley.
Dr Val Canto-Soler recently developed world-first methods to induce human stem cells to grow into an artificial retina in a Petri dish.
Dr Ackerley has previously collaborated with Dr Mumm to create a system for effectively killing specific living cells without harming surrounding tissues, using specially engineered enzymes.
The Falk Medical Research Trust grants one year of funding to find new cures for diseases or improve existing treatments.