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NEI Research News

Thanks to the work of NEI scientists and grantees, we’re constantly learning new information about the causes and treatment of vision disorders. Get the latest updates about their work — along with other news about NEI.

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939 items
Clinical study of a new eye drop may offer hope to patients with dry eye. Photo courtesy of Patrick Walderzak.

NEI sets stage for new clinical trial to tackle dry eye

For some people it feels like a speck of sand in the eye, or stinging or burning that doesn’t go away. For others, dry eye disease (or simply dry eye) can become a chronic condition that leads to blurred vision or even vision loss if it goes untreated.
Grantee News

New Glaucoma Culprit Is Found

In a unique study of human ocular cells, a multi-institution research team finds that glaucoma appears to be a consequence of mechanical dysfunction of a thin layer of cells that is the final barrier to fluid entering Schlemm's canal.
Grantee News

"Haven't I Seen This Before?" Researchers Show How Neurons Respond to Sequences of Familiar Objects

A new study reveals how neurons in the part of the brain responsible for recognizing objects respond to being shown a barrage of images.
Grantee News

Proteins critical to wound healing identified

Research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may have implications for treating diseases involving abnormal blood vessel growth, such as the impaired wound healing often seen in diabetes.
Grantee News

Birthday Matters for Wiring-Up the Brain’s Vision Centers

New study suggests that neurons in the developing brains of mice are guided by a simple but elegant birth order rule that allows them to find and form their proper connections.
Retinal pigment epithelium derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Photo credit: Dr. Kapil Bharti.

Gene profiling technique to accelerate stem cell therapies for eye diseases

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed a technique that will speed up the production of stem-cell derived tissues.
Grantee News

Patient-Specific Stem Cells and Personalized Gene Therapy

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have created a way to develop personalized gene therapies for patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a leading cause of vision loss.
Grantee News

New Compound Treats Both Blindness and Diabetes in Animal Studies

In a new study, a chemical compound designed to precisely target part of a crucial cellular quality-control network provided significant protection, in rats and mice, against degenerative forms of blindness and diabetes.
An occupational therapist at Thomas Jefferson University works with a patient who has low vision. Credit: Thomas Jefferson University.

Rehabilitation helps prevent depression from age-related vision loss

Depression is a common risk for people who have lost their vision from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but a new study shows that a type of rehabilitation therapy can cut this risk in half.
NICU care providers take photos of a premature baby's retinas in the NEI-funded e-ROP study of telemedicine for retinopathy of prematurity. Photo credit: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Telemedicine catches blinding disease in premature babies

Telemedicine is an effective strategy to screen for the potentially blinding disease known as retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), according to a study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI).