Steven Roth
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research
When the main artery feeding the retina suddenly becomes blocked, a condition called central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO), retinal cells are starved of oxygen and begin to die, and vision can be lost permanently. There are few proven treatments.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
- Topics
central retinal artery occlusion
retinal ischemia
extracellular vesicles
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Produce engineered extracellular vesicles from mesenchymal stem cells that carry extra miR-424 or miR-146b, small RNAs that dampen gene activity, to test whether they reproduce the protection seen in vesicles from low-oxygen-treated stem cells.
- Use loss- and gain-of-function experiments in culture models of simulated ischemia to test how the engineered vesicles protect retinal ganglion cells, microglia, Müller cells and retinal blood vessel cells.
- Test whether vesicles carrying miR-424 and miR-146b reduce retinal cell death and inflammation in a rodent model of central retinal artery occlusion.
More about the research
Transplanting stem cells has been tried to protect the retina, but few cells integrate, and the transplants can trigger immune reactions or grow abnormally. This project pursues a cell-free alternative: tiny particles that stem cells release, called extracellular vesicles (EVs), which carry protective molecular cargo into other cells.
Why it matters
Central retinal artery occlusion is an eye emergency that can cause sudden, lasting vision loss, and few treatments exist. Engineered vesicles from stem cells, given after the blockage, could become a cell-free therapy that protects retinal cells without the immune and tumor risks of stem cell transplants. The work could also clarify how these vesicles act in the retina more broadly.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Karsten Gronert
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Neuroscience
Define which retinal cells make and respond to prostaglandin D2 (PGD2), a fat-derived signaling molecule, in healthy retina and how raised eye pressure (ocular hypertension) shuts this pathway down.
Julie Saugstad
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Neuroscience
Characterize the size and surface marker proteins of cerebrospinal fluid extracellular vesicles from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and control participants, comparing females vs. males and APOE-e4 vs. APOE-e3 carriers.
Ashok Shetty
Texas A&M University-College Station, TX·Neuroscience
Test whether nasal delivery of extracellular vesicles from human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural stem cells in early or late middle age preserves memory and cognition into old age in mice.
The school
University of Illinois Chicago: 42 labs on PI Pages, $532M a year on research, 359 research doctorates a year.
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