Endocrine Abstracts

Diabetic retinopathy is a serious complication of diabetes that can lead to vision loss and blindness. With the prevalence of diabetes rising in children, the number of young people at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy is expected to increase in the coming years. Current treatments for diabetic retinopathy only target the end-stages of the disease when significant retinal damage has already occurred. Thus, there remains an unmet medical need for new treatments, particularly those with efficacy in the early stages of the disease. Our group have recently shown that retinal accumulation of the acrolein-derived advanced lipoxidation end-product, FDP-lysine (N -(3-formyl-3,4-dehydropiperidino-lysine) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy. We have also identified a drug called 2-HDP that is effective in scavenging acrolein and preventing retinal FDP-lysine accumulation during diabetes. In this talk, I will present our most recent data exploring the pre-clinical effects of 2-HDP on the development of experimental diabetic retinopathy. Our findings so far suggest that acrolein scavenging drugs like 2-HDP could provide an effective means to halt the development of diabetic retinopathy before it reaches its advanced, sight-threatening, stages.