The Centre for Research and Development of Innovative Therapies in Ophthalmology (CeRDITO) groups specialists working primarily on:
- prevention, diagnosis and innovative treatment of common neurodegenerative eye diseases associated with age and environmental factors [age-related macular degeneration (AMD), retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), diabetic and hypertensive retinopathy, ischemic ocular neuropathy;
- development of innovative therapeutics, including cellular and gene-based therapies for ophthalmic diseases (innovative cell-based formulations and packaging systems for controlled and site-specific delivery of pro-regenerative drugs for ophthalmic diseases);
- investigation of novel biomarkers for disease diagnostics and therapy monitoring (search for biologically active substances and gene-related products for diagnostic applications in ophthalmology);
- development of multi-centre pre-clinical and clinical studies of innovative therapies for different applications in ophthalmology (microencapsulation of therapeutic substances, ophthalmic delivery of controlled release drugs, biotechnology of therapeutic nanogels and dendrimers for ophthalmic diseases).
Additionally, the CeRDITO specialists pursue research on characterization of biodegradable nanomaterials and innovative nanotechnologies for different therapeutic and diagnostic applications in ophthalmology.
The CeRDITO research infrastructural capacity includes microscopy (fluorescence/confocal) facility, a multi-imager system for analysis of fixed and live biological samples (Pathway, BD), a Luminex-FlexMap3D bead array system, flow cytometry (LSRII, BD) and cell sorting facility (FacsAria-IIu, BD), a cell-culture facility for human primary cell cultures, real-time qPCR system and a microarray facility, a laboratory animal facility, a multimodal in vivo imaging system using bioluminescence/fluorescence/X-ray/ionizing radiation for preclinical studies (In-Vivo Xtreme), vision research facility including electroretinography (UTAS), a retinal vessel analyzer (Imedos), and retinal spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Bioptigen).
The expertise offered includes:
- morphological and functional characterization of different retinal degeneration models;
- pre-clinical in vivo models for various ophthalmic diseases related to retina (retinal acute chemical injury, inherited slow retinal degeneration, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) injury model);
- “packaging” of neuro-active substances on micro scale and characterization of their therapeutic effectiveness (“combined cell- and gene-based therapies”);
- multiple-target biochemical or immunological diagnostic tests (ELISA, Luminex, Flow cytometry, protein arrays) for biomarker identification in clinical samples;
- search for differentially expressed genes and miRNAs as potential diagnostic or prognostic molecular biomarkers in personalised medicine of retinal degenerations;
- investigating pathophysiology of ophthalmic diseases through multimodal morphological, cytogenetic and molecular biology services;
- functional characterization of retinal degeneration in animal models, based on optical coherence tomography and biological responses to visual stimuli tested by electroretinography or retinal vessel responsiveness analysis;
- stem cell isolation for combined cell- and gene-based therapeutic strategies;
- animal models of different retinal degenerative diseases.
Thematic area - Cluster in Horizon Europe: 1. Health