The National Eye Institute (NEI) has awarded Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers a 5-year, multi-million dollar grant to study and reverse diabetes-related eyesight damage.
Let’s start with these researchers.
To be more specific, we’ll narrow it down to one ophthalmic clinician: Fu-Shin Yu, PhD, professor of ophthalmology, visual, and anatomical sciences at Wayne State’s School of Medicine.
His research: Role of Programmed Cell Death Pathways in Bacterial Keratitis (more on that in a moment).
Give me some background on this.
Funding for this research first began in 1995; fast-forward to 2008, when Dr. Yu received a 5-year, $1.9 million grant to continue his studies as well as a second grant from the NEI later that same year.
And how much is this new grant for?
$2,167,882, to be exact.
Now more about the research.
Dr. Yu’s clinical investigation dives into biological processes that lead to defects in the eye’s immune response of patients with diabetes.
- How: By focusing on the cornea in order to understand:
- Why these patients are more prone to developing keratitis (corneal infection)
- Why the disease progresses faster in these patients
- Why this patient base is also more resistant to treatments
- The ultimate goal: To identify methods for reversing these defects
Give me the details.
The researchers are using type 1 and type 2 diabetes mouse models and the bacteria Pseudomonas (P.) aeruginosa as a model pathogen.
Note on P. aeruginosa: If you recall, this bacteria was linked to a multi-state outbreak of artificial tear-associated patient cases that were reported in 2023. See here for our original coverage.
- The aftermath:
- 18 states affected
- 81 confirmed cases
- 14 vision loss cases
- 4 enucleations
- 4 deaths
In fact: Recent research has found that P. aeruginosa and Staphylococcus (S.) aureus account for over 50% of infectious keratitis cases.
So why focus on these bacteria and diabetes?
According to Wayne State, last year’s P. aeruginosa cases further support the “urgent need” to better understand how and why diabetic patients are often more susceptible to developing severe cases of bacterial keratitis.
Even further: Such cases of microbial keratitis in the corneas of diabetic patients have been known to progress rapidly.
Let’s circle back to these mouse models.
Dr. Yu noted that, in previous research, “we found evidence that mice are more susceptible to corneal infections.”
The investigators are evaluating samples from the infected corneas of these mice to determine how their ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequences affects their infection’s progression and identify their biological pathways.
And the intended result?
By this comparison of normal and diabetic samples, researchers hope to discover new potential treatments for reversing diabetic patients’ damaged corneas.