University of Iowa to Research Genetic Factors Involved in Development of Glaucoma

July 9, 2009

The National Institutes of Health has awarded the University of Iowa a five-year nearly $3.6 million grant for research into the genes and disease processes in glaucoma. The grant was effective July 1.

The long-term goal of the study is to identify and define pathways that lead from variations in the DNA sequence of the genome to the irreversible vision loss of glaucoma, said John Fingert, M.D., the study’s principal investigator and an assistant professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and an ophthalmologist with UI Hospitals and Clinics.

The grant will look to identify genetic factors associated with glaucoma by conducting a genome-wide association study of the patients in the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study. Parallel studies will also be conducted using animal models.

This project also will involve UI researchers from other departments such as molecular physiology and biophysics, statistics and actuarial sciences, biostatics, and biomedical engineering. In addition, investigators at Washington University and members of the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study will be involved in this project.

Read the release.

 

 



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