Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have reported the development of a new drug delivery system which has the potential to treat degenerative diseases of the retina, including retinitis pigmentosa (RP), age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.

The research was led by Dr Matthew Campbell and Professor Peter Humphries of TCD’s Smurfit Institute of Genetics and School of Genetics and Microbiology.

The new process has been used in the suppression of new retinal blood vessel growth in mice, a phenomenon called neovascularisation, which is the major sight-threatening symptom associated with age-related macular degeneration in humans. 

Currently an estimated 98 per cent of clinically validated drugs, many of which would have utility in the treatment of these diseases, can not cross from the bloodstream into the retina because of the presence of the so-called inner blood-retina barrier, which, as its name implies, represents a tight seal between the blood supply and retinal tissues.

The researchers at Trinity have developed a method for periodically and reversibly opening the barrier just enough to allow therapeutic drugs into the eye, but small enough to keep harmful blood-borne substances out.