ARVO 2023: Research on epigenetic reprogramming to reverse aging and restore function to RGCs

Our onsite team spoke with Bruce Ksander, PhD, at the 2023 ARVO annual meeting, where he discussed his presentation about epigenetic reprogramming to reverse aging and restore function to retinal ganglion cells.

Video transcript

Editor’s note: Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Bruce Ksander, PhD:

Hello, I'm Bruce Ksander, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and I'm here to present our work on epigenetic reprogramming to reverse aging and restore function to retinal ganglion cells.

So, in collaboration with my colleagues at Life Biosciences and the Department of Genetics at Harvard, and I'm at Mass. Eye and Ear here, we've worked together to develop a new type of gene therapy that uses 3 of the 4 Yamanaka genes that can reprogram cells, and when we use 3 of these reprogramming genes, it reverses the epigenetic age of retinal ganglion cells.

So we've applied this in several mouse models of physiological aging glaucoma and optic nerve crush, and what we just presented at ARVO is now the most recent study on non-human primates where we've induced, with a laser, a form of NAION, and so, in these primates, we induced vision loss and damage to RGCs by the laser treatment, and then applied an intravitreal injection of an inducible AAV OSK gene therapy.

This then restored the visual function in the primates as assessed by pattern ERGs. And so, we're very optimistic about this platform moving forward as a way to rejuvenate aged or injured cells, and we believe this will go on and be applicable to other cells in the retina besides RGCs.