Glaucoma is a severely debilitating and common disorder of the eye leading to blindness in many patients affected. Current treatments involving reduction of pressure within the eye often do not work for many patients. Therefore this project aims to examine the genetic and environmental factors of this disease in eye cells donated from healthy patients. Glaucoma is believed to be a result of modifications to a person’s genes. Furthermore, exposure of normal eye cells to toxic ‘Reative Oxygen Species’ (ROS) has been shown to induce a glaucoma like disease pattern. These toxic molecules are highly reactive forms of the normal oxygen which we breathe. Therefore this project seeks to identify changes in the gene modifications and the levels at which certain glaucoma related genes are switched on or off in normal human cells which have been exposed to Reactive Oxygen Species. Finally I wish to observe any potential therapeutic benefit gained from using drugs which reduce the occurence of ROS in patient derived eye cells which have been exposed to ROS as this may indicate their use to treat patients suffering from glaucoma.
