A chemical was shown to clear cataracts in mice and human eye lens tissue in lab experiments, and researchers have already licensed it to a company to develop for human use.
The chemical is soluble enough to be used as an eye drop, researchers said, making for a far easier -- and cheaper -- method of treating the blinding condition, referred to as the "holy grail in ophthalmology."
In July, researchers at the University of California San Diego reported a chemical compound, lanosterol, cleared cataracts in rabbit and dog eye lenses. In that study, lanosterol had to be injected into the eye because it was not soluble enough to for an eye-drop formulation.
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco and the University of Michigan continued working with similar compounds, settling on compound 29, which in the lab dissolved amyloids that had already formed and stabilized crystallins, preventing them from clumping into amyloids.
In the new study, published in the journal Science, the researchers tested the compound on mice with mutations that made them predisposed to cataracts and mice with naturally developed age-related cataracts, finding that drops containing compound 29 improved transparency in the rodents' eye lenses. The same was seen in human lens tissue clouded by cataracts that had been removed during surgery.
The compound has been licensed by the University of Michigan to a company formed in the incubator program at UC San Francisco called ViewPoint Therapeutics to develop it for human use.
