Research to slow down cataracts
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Jasminka Mizdrak |
Slowing down the progression of age-related cataracts, and ultimately their prevention, are the primary aims of PhD research being undertaken at Macquarie University.
Under the joint supervision of Associate Professor Joanne Jamie from Macquarie's Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, Save Sight Institute's Professor Roger Truscott and the Heart Research Institute's Professor Michael Davies, Jasminka Mizdrak has been attempting to better understand how cataracts form in the human eye.
"There are about 38 million cases of blindness worldwide and around 40 per cent of these are due to cataract, a condition that results in opacification or clouding of the eye lens," explains Mizdrak. "In Australia alone, 1.5 million Australians aged over 55 suffer from cataract, which is 31 per cent of this age group. Surgical removal and replacement of the lens - costing around $3000 per eye in Australia - is currently the only available treatment."
"The essential first step in developing preventative or therapeutic drugs is to understand how and why cataracts form. I have been focusing on the natural UV filters in the eye lens, which are implicated in age-related cataract, and have conducted model studies that have led to a greater understanding, at the molecular level, of the role of UV filters in cataract formation."
Research method
Mizdrak's work has involved extracting lenses from the eyeballs of cows. She has utilised cows as it has been shown that their proteins are very similar to human lens proteins and therefore are good models of the human proteins.
One strand of the project involved isolating the proteins from the lenses and irradiating them, in the presence of the UV filters, with UV light. "We use irradiation because of the fact that a lot of people believe that UV light can cause cataract and damage," says co-supervisor Dr Joanne Jamie. "Jasminka's work has been helping to show that when these small molecules bind with the lens proteins, the presence of UV light accentuates the damage."
Exciting findings
The changes that Mizdrak sees when the small molecules are bound to the proteins upon UV light radiation are quite distinctive of cataract according to Jamie.
"What is really exciting about this work is that Jasminka is helping to show the cause of the changes we see upon cataract formation," she says. "This is aiding our understanding of the mechanism of cataract formation and is really important because that can help us to prevent cataracts through different practices or drug design in the future."
International recognition
Mizdrak, who was born in Croatia, was selected from around 120 early-career chemists to present at the first-ever European Chemistry Congress, held in Budapest, Hungary last year. She was then selected to be one of 14 finalists in the 2006 European Young Chemist Award.
Mizdrak hopes to submit her thesis by April this year and in the long term is working towards a research position combining synthetic chemistry and biochemistry.
For further information contact Jasminka Mizdrak at jmizdrak@chem.mq.edu.au or Associate Professor Joanne Jamie joanne.jamie@mq.edu.au