Potential of endothelial progenitors to reverse choroidal atrophy during age related macular degeneration

Such an improvement may allow the cells to better survive introduction into an oxidative environment and augment their ability to integrate with and repair damaged vasculature. Overall this could improve the probability of a successful procedure. This approach of cell functional improvement may bring us closer to developing a viable, cell based therapy to prevent the vision loss caused by dry AMD.

The hypothesis of this PhD project is that the introduction of ECFCs into an environment that resembles the pathology of dry AMD will result in the reduction or elimination of the resulting pathological destruction of the choroidal/RPE/Photoreceptor complex. It is believed that ECFCs are capable of this due to existing pre clinical evidence, however the final aspect of this project will attempt to determine the possibility of conditioning the ECFCs to enhance their overall function as therapeutic cells as a viable option to augment their treatment efficacy.