Killifish: A Novel Model of AMD
Principal Investigator
Nicole Noel, PhD
University College London (UK)
London, England, United Kingdom
About the Research Project
Program
Award Type
Postdoctoral Fellowship
Award Amount
$199,998
Active Dates
September 01, 2022 - August 31, 2025
Grant ID
M2022002F
Goals
This project aims to determine the biological processes underlying aging retinal disease and identify therapeutic targets by utilizing killifish, a naturally occurring model of AMD.
Summary
Killifish retinas will be characterized for AMD-like pathologies throughout their lifespan, including the rate of vision loss, deposit accumulation, immune cell activation and translocation, and photoreceptor cell death mechanism. Age-related disease will be exacerbated or alleviated by transgene introduction, genome editing, and/or pharmaceutical treatment.
Unique and Innovative
There are few accurate models of AMD currently, which makes studying mechanisms underlying AMD pathology and identifying therapeutics exceedingly difficult. The killifish is an emerging model of accelerated ageing that naturally undergoes age-associated retinal degeneration, and therefore provides the unique opportunity to study how retinal diseases of ageing develop and can be prevented.
Foreseeable Benefits
Age-related macular degeneration is a leading cause of vision loss in our ageing population. There are currently no effective treatments for dry/atrophic AMD, the most common type of AMD, due to a poor understanding of the cellular causes and pathophysiology. This work will determine the biological processes underlying age-related photoreceptor degeneration and identify therapeutics through the killifish model.
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