Eye health
Eye Health
One in three children now has short-sightedness (myopia). Prof Maryse Bailly is working to treat young patients with this condition.
In severe cases, myopia (short-sightedness) can lead to vision loss in adulthood. Prof Maryse Bailly and her team at University College London aim to understand how eye growth is controlled in children and what goes wrong in myopia, where the eyeball grows too long. They are studying the tissues that directly support eye growth, namely the sclera (white outer coat of the eye) and the choroid (vascular layer underneath the retina). Using donor eye cells from children, adolescents and adults who have passed away, the team have discovered how cells from the sclera and the choroid communicate with each other. As experts in tissue engineering, stem cell research, genetics and children's eye health, Prof Bailly and her team now aim to use cells from their bank of samples and from patients with myopia to develop multi-layered mini-tissues in the lab. They will study how these cells respond to growth signals, how their response changes with age, and how this differs in patients with myopia. This work will provide the starting point for testing new strategies for drug screening and personalised prevention and treatment, which Prof Bailly hopes to rapidly transfer to real-life clinics to support children with this condition. |