SUMMARY
Gavin W. Roddy, M.D., Ph.D., researches mechanisms of cellular disease and dysfunction that lead to novel treatments for glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Since Dr. Roddy also is a cataract and glaucoma surgeon and cares for patients with these conditions clinically, he also performs clinical research studies to determine systemic risk factors for glaucoma.
Focus areas
- Developing novel approaches to lower intraocular pressure (IOP) and treat glaucoma. Dr. Roddy and his team have identified a novel molecule that lowers IOP, the primary reliable, modifiable risk factor for glaucoma. Also, Dr. Roddy has developed a way to deliver this therapy in a sustained manner that would allow patients to benefit from IOP reduction without the burden of instilling eyedrops daily.
- Understanding mechanisms of retinal neuron loss. Despite being defined as an optic neuropathy, no successful direct neuroprotective strategies to treat glaucoma exist to date. Current pathways being investigated by Dr. Roddy's laboratory include those related to inflammation and oxidative stress.
- Identifying systemic risk factors that lead to the development or progression of glaucoma. Although IOP is the leading modifiable risk factor for the onset and progression of glaucoma, there may be other systemic risk factors that contribute to disease. Dr. Roddy and his team have investigated conditions using population-based studies related to or associated with vascular dysfunction, metabolic syndrome and systemic inflammation.
Significance to patient care
Glaucoma remains the world's leading cause of blindness that can't be reversed. Despite being defined as an optic neuropathy, the only reliable way to treat glaucoma is to lower IOP, the most common risk factor.
Though there are surgical options, eye drop therapy has historically been the first way to treat patients with glaucoma. But less than half of patients use glaucoma eye drops as prescribed. Also, ocular surface disease is seen in over half of patients taking topical glaucoma medicines.
Providing a treatment that lowers IOP and will last for a long time will make treatment outcomes better and decrease the number of surgeries done. Such a treatment also would reduce blindness.
Finding new classes of therapeutics by studying pathways of disease in the laboratory and doing population-based studies in the clinic will make patient care better by providing more therapies. Insights gained from these studies may lead to new treatment approaches based on sustained IOP reduction and related to neuroprotective strategies.