“Our challenge is to enable patients with many more types of blindness to regain their sight”

In an interview published in Expansion last Friday 28th September, Dr. Jordi Monés talked about the current situation of research into treatments of atrophic AMD and the challenges that have to be faced.

Dr. Monés explained that “AMD is becoming a real epidemic that drastically affects the quality of life of many elderly people”. He went on to describe the current situation of research: “Each day we are getting closer to finding treatments that are effective at slowing down this deterioration. Our research lines range from the clinical application of new molecules to try and stop disease progression to therapies that target complement factor 5 and the application of special lasers or regenerative therapies in which stem cells or tissue are transplanted, which is currently in the pre-clinical research phase in animal models.”

Dr Monés concluded by explaining that the Barcelona Macula Foundation is working “on several, clinical and pre-clinical, research lines to obtain effective treatments for other eyesight conditions such as Retinitis Pigmentosa or Stargardt’s disease for which no current treatment exists, and which often lead to total blindness, especially in the case of Retinitis Pigmentosa. Our challenge is to be able to reverse many kinds of blindness. This sounds ambitious, but we think that with the concerted effort of so many investigators all over the world, it is just a question of time.”