Profiling of Immune Cell Subtypes in AMD Patients and Controls

This project seeks to understand the genetic basis of AMD. By leveraging the most innovative genomic techniques available, we will hope to gain insights into biomarkers for disease progression and identify novel targets for preventive therapeutics.

A number of well-characterized genetic changes strongly influence an individual’s risk of developing age-related macular degeneration; in this work, we aim to elucidate the role of these mutations and their influence on disease risk and progression. To accomplish this, we will use cutting-edge technologies to profile cells from patients and elucidate shared or unique disease mechanisms based on each individual’s genetic risk. We are collecting genetic, phenotypic, and cellular profiling data from both older individuals with and without AMD as well as younger pre-symptomatic individuals. Together, we hope that this dataset will lead to a better understanding of disease mechanism, define clinically relevant biomarkers of disease onset, and inform the development of preventative therapeutics.