Experimental therapy may lead to macular degeneration, an international team of researchers caution

Having discovered a genetic trigger for **age-related macular degeneration**, the leading cause of vision loss in people over 50, researchers report that an experimental state-of-the-art therapy for treating eye disease could adversely affect the vision of some patients with the "wrong" genetic makeup. In the August 28 online issue of **the New England Journal of Medicine**, a multi-institutional team, including an interdisciplinary contingent from Johns Hopkins, reports that a mutation in toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3), a protein known to help cells fight some types of infection, is associated with protection from geographic atrophy. Geographic atrophy, also known as the "dry" form of macular degeneration, is the progressive shriveling of retinal cells in the central part of the tissue called the macula where cell loss equates to irreversible vision loss. More on "eurekalert":[ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/jhmi-etm082108.php]

---