A common age related cause of blindness is being studied by researchers in the Cataract Group of the Agricultural and Life Sciences Division at Lincoln University, New Zealand. They are working on finding out a medical alternative to surgery.
Cataracts are the most common eye disease, particularly as people age. Without treatment people go blind. At present the only treatment is surgery. The aim of this large public and industry funded project is to find a treatment that will prevent cataracts developing.
The financial benefits of this research for New Zealand are potentially huge.
Team member Hannah Lee is studying the physical and chemical changes in the lens of the eye during cataract formation as one part of her PhD project.
“My work uses sheep that have a genetic tendency to develop cataracts as a model for the human cataract,” said Ms Lee. “I am using lenses from sheep as the first step in developing a treatment for cataracts in people. Working on a project such as this that will benefit the quality of life of such a large number of people is very satisfying for me.”
Recently Ms Lee returned from spending seven weeks in the USA at Oregon Health Sciences University learning new techniques from some of the top researchers in cataract research worldwide.
“I was very fortunate to be able to have this visit. It showed me that our research is up with the best in the world,” said Ms Lee.
Ms Lee’s research has involved two different approaches to the problem. After she developed the sheep lens culture model Ms Lee tested different compounds on their lenses’ ability to become opaque, as occurs in cataracts. She then used this system for testing other compounds that are known to inhibit the development of lens opacity.