Summary

To create a mouse model and use it to understand the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration caused by complement, a group of plasma proteins involved in inflammation.

Project Details

There is no effective treatment available for the early or dry type of age‐related macular degeneration (AMD). One idea for future treatments sprung from the discovery that a group of blood proteins that helps the body to attack “foreign invaders,” called the complement system, may initiate dry AMD. Drs. Wenchao Song, Imran Mohammed, and collaborators will create mice that have had the genetic “brake” removed from the complement system. They suspect that this will cause severe inflammation and damage the retina in a way that will resemble dry AMD. If this is the case, then these mice could then be used as a model for testing new preventions and treatments for dry AMD.