A concern for people diagnosed with glaucoma is the uncertainty about whether they will lose their sight.
While current treatments that include pressure-lowering eye drops, implants, and surgeries are effective ways of slowing down vision loss for many people, they don't work for everyone and aren't addressing the root cause of the condition.
Professor Pete Williams, who has just joined CERA to lead our new Neuroprotection and Repair Research program, knows that a better way to stop vision loss that targets the real cause of the disease is out there.
Using eye drops to reduce pressure reduces the risk of retinal ganglion cells in the eye dying.
"But this alone isn't enough to prevent cells from eventually dying," Professor Williams says.
With a career spanning the UK, US, Sweden and Singapore, he has just joined CERA to continue his work that aims to find better ways for people with glaucoma to keep their sight.
Revving up eye research
Despite everything that is known about glaucoma and the role that pressure in the eye plays, we are still trying to understand exactly how retinal ganglion cells die.
While reducing pressure in the eye does reduce the stress on these cells, they can still slowly die and cause a loss of vision.
"Retinal ganglion cells in the eye - the cells that are damaged in glaucoma - are like an old motorcycle trying to climb a hill," says Professor Williams.
"And all the treatments we're trying in the clinic are aiming to get that motorcycle over the hill.
"Surgical implants are like paving a smooth road for the motorcycle to ride on, reducing eye pressure is like knocking down the hill, and genomics is trying to understand exactly why the hill is there in the first place.
"But the problem is that even with all this help, a broken motorcycle at the bottom of the hill can go nowhere regardless of the road surface ahead."
Professor Williams' research career has focused on how to target energy metabolism in retinal ganglion cells to prevent their deaths in several neurodegenerative diseases, including glaucoma.
Before moving to Australia his research has already yielded significant results.
Exciting future
Together with Research Fellow Dr Flora Hui, who has been leading the work at CERA, he has been investigating whether nicotinamide - a form of vitamin B3 - provided alongside current glaucoma treatments can support nerve cell function in the eye.
"I think we're at a point in ophthalmology research where everything is going to start progressing really quickly," says Professor Williams.
"I often describe ophthalmology research as being 10 years behind cancer and Alzheimer's research.
"Everything 10 years ago when both of those conditions were transformed by artificial intelligence and big, blockbuster clinical trials - that's where I feel we're at with glaucoma now."
With the progress he has seen, Professor Williams believes that in the not-too-distant future there will be drugs for glaucoma that are designed to protect nerve cells.
"In the next 15 years, I think we will have clinical trials for the first protective gene therapies.
"In 15 to 20 years I think we're going to be looking realistically at stem cell replacement therapies and regeneration."
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In our latest edition, we share how finding new ways to save a cell's life can prevent vision loss.
