Congratulations to Dr Arjuna Ratnayaka who has been awarded £100,000 from the UK Macular Society @MacularSociety to recruit a PhD student to study how pathogenic macromolecules aggregate inside retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells in the eye. These high-molecular-weight compounds cause cellular dysfunction, resulting in eventual atrophy of RPE cells associated with irreplaceable loss of overlying photoreceptors.
The PhD studentship, which will commence in the autumn, will study how these toxic macromolecules form, and whether boosting the cells’ proteolytic response can prevent RPE damage. Potential findings from this study could pave the way for developing new treatments for common blinding conditions such as age-related macular disease (AMD) as well as some rare retinal dystrophies.
