“Restoring conventional outflow function: the next generation of glaucoma therapeutics”

Presented by W. Daniel Stamer, PhD from Duke University, Department of Ophthalmology and Albert Eye Research Institute

Program Agenda

3:00pm – Refreshments

3:30pm – Presentation

About Dr. Stamer’s Research

My laboratory studies the disease of glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness in the United States, affecting nearly 3 million people (70 million Worldwide). The primary risk factor for developing glaucoma is ocular hypertension (high intraocular pressure, IOP). IOP is a function of aqueous humor moving into and out of the eye.  Elevated IOP in glaucoma is a result of disease in the primary efflux route, the conventional outflow pathway, affecting proper drainage of aqueous humor.

Controlling IOP in glaucoma patients, whether or not they have ocular hypertension, is important because large clinical trials involving tens of thousands of patients repeatedly demonstrate that significant, sustained IOP reduction slows or halts vision loss. Unfortunately, current daily medical treatments do not target the diseased conventional pathway and do not lower IOP sufficiently in most people with glaucoma. Therefore, finding new, more effective ways to medically control IOP by targeting the conventional pathway is a central goal the Stamer Laboratory.

Using molecular, cellular and organ-based model systems, my laboratory seeks to identify and validate novel drug targets in the human conventional outflow pathway such that novel treatment of ocular hypertension and glaucoma can be developed.