Dr Mike (Przemyslaw) Sapieha, director of the ocular neurovascular disease research unit at the HMR Research Center, and chief scientific advisor to the US company UNITY Biotechnology
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A promising treatment1 to treat diabetic retinopathy is developed by the Dr Mike Sapieha, researcher at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Center, and the Dre Pam Tsuruda of the biotechnology company UNITY Biotechnology.
All you need to know about diabetic retinopathy
Diabetic retinopathy is, as the name suggests, a disease of the retina, the inner membrane of the eye, which receives light impressions and then transmits them to the optic nerve.
Retinopathy is caused by degeneration of the blood vessels that supply the retina and renew themselves abnormally.
Target to better treat
These new vessels sometimes leave scars on the retina and interfere with vision. Thus, one of the main challenges of treatment remains the fact of having to distinguish healthy blood vessels from damaged ones.
The results of this research project reveal that abnormal blood vessels in the retina trigger molecular programs associated with accelerated aging, commonly referred to as cellular senescence.
The doctors Sergio Crespo-Garcia and Agnieszka Dejda, researchers from Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Center, identified a molecular target present in defective retinal blood vessels.
This discovery allows the drug to selectively remove the deficient vessel and the retina to repair itself.
Hope for thousands of patients
With just one injection, it would potentially be possible to treat the cells causing this diabetic eye disease. Mike Sapieha, researcher at the HMR Research Center and full professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Montreal
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Thus, UNITY Biotechnology is conducting studies to determine the potential of this new treatment for diabetic retinopathy.
This collaboration between the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Center, the University of Montreal and UNITY Biotechnology could have an impact on the quality of life of patients with diabetic retinopathy, which affects approximately 750,000 Canadians and which is the main cause of blindness in adults of working age. Mike Sapieha
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Reprogram patient histories
Foundation donors can be proud to see that their donations feed the medicine of tomorrow and contribute to major advances in research here at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont. I thank them all for being sources of hope and healing.Julie Desharnais, Executive Director of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Foundation
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Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital: centers of excellence
The Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Center (CR-HMR) has three areas of excellence, priority areas of research: immuno-oncology, nephrology, and ophthalmology, vision health.
The Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital University Ophthalmology Center :
- brings together one of the largest teams of ophthalmologists in Quebec;
- has some of the best equipped research laboratories in North America.
The Center contributes daily to the establishment of best practices in the field of ophthalmology and to the development of the most advanced knowledge and technologies in vision sciences.
˃ Montreal researchers contribute to potential treatment for diabetic retinopathy, VAT News, February 11, 2021
1 The results of this research project have just been published in the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism.
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