Investigating blood vessel regeneration in the retina
17 October 2025
The Moorfields Eye Charity Insight Fund has funded a PhD Studentship in Professor Christiana Ruhrberg’s lab at the Institute of Ophthalmology to investigate the crucial pathways of blood vessel repair and regeneration in the retina.
Retinal vascular diseases are conditions affecting the blood supply to the retina. They include conditions such as retinopathy of prematurity, diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular oedema and wet age-related macular degeneration. They can lead to sight loss and blindness due to the leakage or death of damaged blood vessels in the retina.
Professor Christiana Ruhrberg giving an overview of the project
Currently, a group of medicines called anti-VEGF are the standard treatment for many retinal vascular diseases. However, whilst anti-VEGF treatment can reduce leakage from damaged blood vessels, it does not restore functional blood vessels in retinal areas that have lost their blood supply.
Mengmeng Dong and Professor Christiana Ruhrberg explaining how retinal images are collected in the lab.
More research is needed to uncover how the repair and regeneration of functional blood vessels can be stimulated, which could support the development of new treatments for patients with retinal vascular diseases.
