The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state’s stem cell agency, has awarded a two-year, $6 million grant to a team at the USC Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics and the USC Roski Eye Institute advancing a new treatment for one of the leading causes of blindness in older adults. The funding will enable the researchers to conduct preclinical studies needed before launching human trials.

The investigators aim to accelerate progress in fighting dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which affects about 16 million people in the U.S. Dry AMD, which typically manifests in people 50 and older, is currently incurable and can eventually render those suffering legally blind.

Treatment options are presently limited to well-established vitamin supplements and newly emerged immune-regulating treatments, both of which can only slow the progression of dry AMD.

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