TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Canadian
scientist Dr. Andras Nagy, Senior
Investigator at Mount Sinai's Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research
Institute, is announced today as the inaugural recipient of the
Cedric Ritchie Fund to Cure Blindness, a new $1.5 million initiative made possible by the
Foundation Fighting Blindness, Canada's largest charitable funder of vision
research.
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The Foundation Fighting Blindness - Canada is proud to launch the Cedric
Ritchie Fund to Cure Blindness on World Sight Day, a day that
raises awareness about the 253 million people around the world who
are living with a severe vision impairment or blindness.
A pioneer in the field of stem cell research, Dr. Nagy has been
studying the intricacies of stem cells for thirty years and is
world-renowned for discovering a method to create stem cells from
other cells in the body, a breakthrough in regenerative medicine.
"In many ways this is the culmination of decades of work," said
Sharon Colle, President and CEO of
the organization awarding the grant, the Foundation Fighting
Blindness - Canada. "Dr. Nagy is
leveraging years of experience and research to develop a
revolutionary approach to treating age-related macular degeneration
(AMD), the leading cause of vision loss in people over the age of
50. Dr. Nagy aims to cure AMD by combining approaches in stem cell
and gene therapy, two of the most promising therapeutic strategies
in vision science."
"Our hope," continued Colle, "is that this grant will enable him
to transition his approach out of the lab and into clinical trials,
where it can be tested as an experimental treatment for people
living with AMD. It's a journey that will take five years, a very
short period within the often-plodding timeframes of scientific
discovery." Clinical trials are an essential step in the
development of potential treatments, and many scientists struggle
to get that far. "Some refer to the gap between the lab and
clinical trials as 'the valley of death,'" said Colle. "It's where
excellent but poorly funded science goes to die. Considering what's
at stake in Dr. Nagy's work, we couldn't let that happen."
Approximately 1.4 million Canadians are affected by AMD, and
though treatment options exist for those with its most severe form,
"wet-AMD," these involve frequent ocular injections of "anti-VEGF"
drugs. "VEGF" refers to "vascular endothelial growth factor," an
essential protein responsible for stimulating the growth of new
blood vessels. In AMD, VEGF is overexpressed, leading to irregular
blood vessel growth and, when left untreated, the leakage of blood
into the eye—the "wet" in "wet-AMD."
"We're now able to genetically program stem cells to deliver
anti-VEGF proteins on their own," explained Dr. Nagy. "It's a
cutting-edge realization of the dream of regenerative medicine:
rather than inject the protein into the patient's eye, we program
stem cells to do the work for us. An added benefit, and one with
enormous potential, is that these stem cells could also replace the
retinal cells that are damaged in advanced AMD, restoring vision
for patients who have lost it."
"This is an important stage," continued Dr. Nagy, "in the
decades-long quest to treat a disease that robs far too many of
their sight. Laser surgery was the only option decades ago, then
photodynamic therapy emerged as a viable means for removing
abnormal blood vessels, and more recently anti-VEGF injections
became the standard of care. But I really think that combining stem
cells with gene therapy is the next step: it's a new paradigm, a
'one-shot' therapy or cure that treats the condition while
reversing vision loss, all without subjecting patients to regular
discomfort and the barriers associating with repeated
injections."
"The advancement of this work would have been impossible without
support from the Foundation Fighting Blindness," said Dr. Nagy. "In
Canada, funds earmarked for science are dwindling rapidly, so
connecting individual donors to the best science possible has never
been more essential." The $1.5
million initiative is the result of an individual commitment
from Barbara Ritchie, whose late
husband, Cedric Ritchie, lived his
final years without sight due to complications from AMD and
glaucoma. Mr. Ritchie was a renowned entrepreneur and Canadian
banker who rose from teller, then president and CEO, and finally to
chairman of the Bank of Nova
Scotia. "Cedric never let vision loss get in his way," said
Mrs. Ritchie, "and insisted on getting work done, regardless of the
difficulty. I know that if he were here today, he'd want a similar
principle applied to Canada's
vision science. He'd want the best science to be supported, and
he'd want it maximized to impact as many people as possible."
Contact Information: April Watts,
Communications Manager, The Foundation Fighting Blindness –
Canada, 1.800.461.3331 ext. 231,
awatts@ffb.ca