Semaphorins as guidance cues of retinal angiogenic disease

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Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the most common causes for blindness in adults in industrialized countries. One of the hallmarks of wet AMD is pathologic blood vessel growth (angiogenesis) at the posterior pole of the eye which is often associated with rapid loss of central visual acuity. Over the last years, molecules like the semaphorins that were originally identified as neuronal guidance cues, have been found to play important angiomodulatory roles. How semaphorins function in the context of wet AMD, however, has not been investigated. This project thus aims to investigate the role of retinal semaphorins in modulating subretinal angiogenesis using a functional lentiviral approach. The project aims to cover aspects of basic science of semaphorin function as well as functional in vitro and in vivo experiments and analysis of human samples in order to elucidate the role of semaphorins in modulating pathologic angiogenesis in wet AMD.