Patients with diabetes, particularly those with type 1 diabetes, often suffer from vision loss in a disease complication called diabetic retinopathy. In diabetes the retina, which senses light in the eye, is deprived of oxygen, causing damage and uncontrolled growth of blood vessels. Our research will find treatments that protect the retina in low oxygen conditions in order to prevent diabetic retinopathy.

When patients who lack light-sensing nerve cells in the retina through an inherited disease also become diabetic, they are protected from diabetic retinopathy. This and similar observations in mice show that nerve cells in the retina play an important role in diabetic retinopathy. According to my previous research, these nerve cells are very sensitive to low oxygen conditions. Nevertheless, treatments that protect nerve cells in the retinas from patients with diabetes remain unavailable.

We hypothesize that protecting the light-sensing nerve cells in the retina from lack of oxygen will prevent diabetic retinopathy in patients with diabetes. As a first step, we will identify existing drugs that protect these nerve cells in low oxygen conditions.

Our research group consists of scientists who study light responses of nerve cells in the retina during health and disease. We will determine how lack of oxygen changes light responses in the retina and apply drugs to preserve normal function.

Currently, clinicians can only try to delay vision loss in the late stages of diabetic retinopathy, but many patients with diabetes, particularly those with type 1 diabetes, continue to become blind. I envision that my research will identify drugs that protect the retina from hypoxia, prevent or at least delay diabetic retinopathy and thus improve the quality of life for patients living with diabetes.