FOR 1075: Regulation and Pathology of Homeostatic Processes for Visual Function

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The eye is the most important sensory organ in humans. Accordingly, blindness and vision loss are diseases that severely handicap affected patients and lead to a massive loss of quality of life. According to the definition of the World Health Organisation, the number of blind people in Germany is at 164 000, while more than a million are visually handicapped. The most common causative diseases are age-related macula degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and the group of hereditary retinal dystrophies. The first three of the diseases occur more commonly with increasing age. Since life expectancy has considerably increased over recent years, it is reasonable to assume that the number of blind and visually handicapped people in Germany will substantially increase in the years to come. Basic research on the molecular factors that cause loss of vision is critically needed, in order to develop better and more effective therapeutic strategies. This is the goal of the Research Unit at the University Regensburg. The research effort is based on the observation that the diseases, which frequently lead to vision loss, have in common the continuing cell death of nerve cells in the retina. Retinal nerve cell death is primarily the result of the continuous failure of auxiliary or homeostatic systems. Such systems include vasculature and blood flow, intraocular pressure and the immune system, which are all critically needed to maintain the complex metabolic requirements of neurons and to keep them alive. At the University of Regensburg, homeostatic systems are investigated in a multidisciplinary approach, with the final goal to uncover the reasons for cell death of neurons in the retina, and to develop novel and better therapeutic strategies. Members of the Research Unit are laboratories from three different faculties such as the faculty for natural sciences III (human anatomy), the medical faculty (ophthalmology, human genetics and neurology) and the philosophical faculty II (psychology).