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Catalyst For a Cure Phase Two Completed
The year 2008 marked in many ways a turning point for the Catalyst for a Cure. Completed work from the end of the second phase (2005-2007) found its way into key publications, while new work building from the second phase was begun. Of note were two papers in the Journal of Neuroscience. These described early changes in glaucoma associated with the neurochemistry of the retina and optic nerve and the persistence of retinal neurons long after those changes occur. Papers in Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science described how silencing the immune system in glaucoma can increase survival of the optic nerve and the use of magnetic resonance imaging to track disease progression. Finally, in another study in Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, CFC investigators linked a potentially protective signal from retinal cells to a special pressure sensor that could be activated in glaucoma. These and other results were presented as part of a larger showcase of findings at the 2008 Vanderbilt Eye Institute Symposium “Neurodegeneration in Glaucoma: from Mechanisms to New Treatments”. The symposium, which was sponsored in part by the Glaucoma Research Foundation, brought together glaucoma researchers and physicians from all over the United States and Canada to share their latest investigations and novel ideas.