THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR EYE AND VISION RESEARCH

E-ZINE Volume 3, Number 3 (April 2007)

Welcome to NAEVR’s E-ZINE, a quarterly electronic publication that highlights breakthrough eye and vision research funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The nation's investment in the NEI results in new treatments to prevent vision loss and restore it. Vision impairment and eye disease currently cost the United States $68 billion annually in healthcare expenditures, reduced productivity, and diminished quality of life.

In this edition:

• AEVR EDUCATIONAL BRIEFING, APRIL 17—"VISION FOR THE FUTURE: EYE IMAGING TO SAVE AND RESTORE VISION"
  
  
• RYAN TELLS HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ABOUT IMPACT OF NIH BUDGET DOUBLING ON EYE RESEARCH
  
  
• NIH DIRECTOR EXPLAINS 4 P’S
  
  
• NIH MEDLINEPLUS FEATURES AREDS INVESTIGATOR CHEW
  
  
• SIEVING AND COLLINS AUTHOR JAMA COMMENTARY ON OPHTHALMIC GENETICS
  
  
• SCHAUMBERG SAYS SMOKING AND OBESITY IMPACT AMD
  
  
• NEI’S 2007 HEALTHY VISION MONTH SPOTLIGHTS GLAUCOMA
  
  

ALLIANCE FOR EYE AND VISION RESEARCH EDUCATIONAL BRIEFING
"Vision for the Future: Eye Imaging to Save and Restore Vision"


Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Senate Hart 902, Noon – 1:15 p.m.


Featured Speaker
Stephen J. Ryan, M.D.
President of the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California


Please join us.
RSVP to Dina Beaumont at 202-530-4672 or dina_beaumont@yr.com Note that AEVR, a 501(c)3 educational foundation, is hosting this widely attended event, with meal value less than $50. Details at: http://www.eyeresearch.org/press_releases/3.20.07.html

RYAN TELLS HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ABOUT IMPACT OF NIH BUDGET DOUBLING ON EYE RESEARCH, FUNDING FOR FOLLOW-UP

Dr. Stephen Ryan is no stranger to Capitol Hill. On March 27, 2007, he testified before the House LHHS Appropriations Subcommittee about the impact of the past doubling of the NIH budget on eye and vision research. Dr. Ryan gave the following examples:

• In collaboration with the Human Genome Project, NEI-funded researchers identified genes associated with an estimated 60 percent of all cases of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in the U.S. The genes play a role in inflammation, maybe similar to other inflammation-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. NEI Director Dr. Paul Sieving believes that finding a link between the causes of Alzheimer’s and AMD could be one of the biggest stories of the next decade.



• The NEI’s Age-Related Eye Disease Study, or AREDS, demonstrated that high levels of dietary zinc and antioxidant vitamins can reduce vision loss by 25 percent in people at high risk for advanced AMD. NEI has begun a second AREDS study (AREDS2) testing additional dietary supplements that may be even more effective.



• Collaborative research—among scientists from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and NEI—into factors that inhibit new blood vessel growth—produced the first FDA-approved drug for stopping abnormal blood vessel growth in AMD. Remarkably, the drug also improves eyesight for many people.



• The NEI’s Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network, in conjunction with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), yielded treatments for diabetic retinopathy that are more than 90 percent effective and save the U.S. healthcare system over $1.6 billion annually in disability payments.

Dr. Ryan reminded the Subcommittee that adequate NEI funding will lead to the 21st century paradigm envisioned by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, M.D., where health care is predictive, personalized, preemptive, and participatory. Details at: http://www.eyeresearch.org/press_releases/3.27.07.html

NIH DIRECTOR EXPLAINS 4 P’s

In the Winter 2007 issue of the National Library of Medicine’s new publication, NIHMedlinePlus, Dr. Zerhouni discusses his vision for the future of health care. NIHMedlinePlus was launched in summer 2006 to provide authoritative information from the NIH, other government agencies, and health-related organizations to the public and professions. Briefly, in Dr. Zerhouni’s words:

"[Previously] we tried to cure people of whatever had evolved in them. Now we need to be much more predictive about what happens to whom, and when, because we’re dealing with more long-term, chronic diseases."

"Traditional one-size-fits-all treatments must be tailored to the individual because people don’t react exactly alike. If we’re smart enough, we will be able to preempt disease—to strike it before it strikes the patient."

"As opposed to the doctor-centric, curative model of the past, the future is going to be patient-centric and proactive…It requires voluntary, intelligent participation, not passive acceptance."

The fourth "p" in Dr. Zerhouni’s paradigm—personalized—was the center point of a recent speech by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to the Personalized Medicine Coalition. Secretary Leavitt described “personalized health care” where gene-based medical care combined with health information technology will deliver health care at the individual level. Details at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/magazine.html

NIH MEDLINEPLUS FEATURES AREDS INVESTIGATOR CHEW

Another article in the Winter 2007 issue of NIHMedlinePlus features Emily Chew, M.D., Deputy Director of the NEI’s Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research. Dr. Chew is the lead investigator on the AREDS2 study and is currently seeking 4000 participants nationwide for the clinical trial testing whether two kinds of nutrients—the vegetable-derived vitamins lutein and zeaxanthin and the fatty acids DHA and EPA—can alter the risk of advanced AMD and the need for cataract surgery.

SIEVING AND COLLINS AUTHOR JAMA COMMENTARY ON OPHTHALMIC GENETICS

NEI director Paul Sieving, M.D., Ph.D., and Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), authored a recent commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) describing ways that advances in ophthalmologic genetics apply to eye disorders and other areas of medicine. They describe gene-environmental interactions, the recent Genes and Environment Initiative announced by the NIH, the challenge to diagnostic genetic testing of access to testing, and ethical, social, and legal issues.

The next frontier, they believe, is therapies for genetically linked diseases, citing Leber’s congenital amaurosis (LCA) as a leader. LCA is an inherited retinal degenerative disease characterized by severe loss of vision starting at birth. In the early 1990s, the LCA gene was studied in mice. In 1998, the gene mutation was identified in blind Briard dogs. Amazingly, when a team of researchers injected a single dose of gene therapy into the eyes of the affected dogs, within a few weeks they recovered enough sight to safely navigate their environment. The treated dogs have retained vision and experienced no complications, marking the first time that vision has been restored in a large animal—a critical step on the path to clinical trials in humans. The FDA and the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Board have approved the first LCA gene therapy trial in humans. The first results may be available later this year.

AT AEVR BRIEFING, SCHAUMBERG SAYS CIGARETTE SMOKING AND OBESITY IMPACT AMD

Debra Schaumberg, Sc.D., O.D., M.P.H., of Harvard Medical School spoke at a February 20, 2007, AEVR-sponsored Capitol Hill educational briefing, where she described the interplay of genes and lifestyle in AMD. Cigarette smoking and obesity, she explained, are two factors that significantly influence the expression of certain AMD genes. The AVER briefing was held in conjunction with the Women’s Eye Health Task Force and the Society for Women’s Health Research. See details at: http://www.eyeresearch.org/pdf/schaumberg_briefing_onpager.pdf

Dr. Schaumberg is also author of a NEI-funded study published in the March 2007 issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology describing the impact of dry eye on quality of life. She and colleagues report that dry eye affects nearly 8 percent of all women and 5 percent of all men over 50 in the U.S. In other words, work and recreation for nearly 5 million people are impacted by eye irritation, dryness, and fatigue, and fluctuating visual disturbances. This adds dry eye to AMD as a serious public health problem.

NEI’S 2007 HEALTHY VISION MONTH SPOTLIGHTS GLAUCOMA

May is Healthy Vision Month, a National Eye Institute-sponsored observance devoted to promoting the vision objectives of Healthy People 2010. Glaucoma is in the spotlight this year.

In glaucoma, for unknown reasons, fluid builds up inside the eye. The fluid can put pressure on the optic nerve and lead to severe and permanent vision loss. Approximately 4.2 million Americans have the most common form called primary open-angle glaucoma and about half do not even know they have it. The direct medical cost of glaucoma to the American economy is estimated at $2.9 billion. There is no cure for glaucoma, but early detection and treatment can prevent vision loss. NEI-funded research is directed at understanding intraocular pressure, finding better ways to study optic nerve damage, detecting molecules in blood that indicate a risk for glaucoma, and studying genes to find mutations that can cause glaucoma. Discovering glaucoma-related genes will lead to strategies for assessing a person’s risk for glaucoma and to devising strategies for prevention and early diagnosis.