Katelyn Swindle-Reilly
Ohio State University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) destroys central vision and is the third leading cause of blindness in the United States. The early 'dry' form is driven by inflammation caused by excess reactive oxygen species (ROS), damaging oxygen-containing molecules, and it has no cure.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
Pharmacology
- Topics
age-related macular degeneration
dry AMD
retina
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Aug 2026
What they work on
- Synthesize and characterize an investigational anti-inflammatory drug and load it into ROS-responsive polydopamine nanoparticles that release more drug under oxidative stress.
- Measure how human retinal pigment epithelial cells take up the drug and nanoparticles using flow cytometry, and assess two-week biocompatibility in mice.
- Test the safety and effectiveness of the treatment over two months in the sodium iodate mouse model of dry AMD, using fundus imaging, optical coherence tomography, intraocular pressure, and histology.
- Quantify drug levels in eye tissue and retinal HO-1 expression by ELISA to confirm sustained release and probe the drug's mechanism of action.
More about the research
In the later 'wet' form, leaky blood vessels grow because of too much VEGF, a growth signal for blood vessels. Current anti-VEGF drugs must be injected into the eye often, which is costly, painful, and risky. They also do not treat the underlying inflammation. This project develops a long-lasting injectable treatment aimed at that inflammation.
Why it matters
A long-lasting drug-delivery system could cut the number of injections that patients with AMD need. It could also target the inflammation and oxidative stress that drive the disease, which current anti-VEGF drugs do not address. That could lower treatment costs and burden for patients and might also help with other inflammatory eye diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joshua Dunaief
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Develop two new mouse models of geographic atrophy driven by oxidative stress in the retinal pigment epithelium: mice with RPE-specific knockout of glutathione peroxidase 4 and mice given low-dose sodium iodate.
Shuliang Jiao
Florida International University, FL·Biomedical Engineering
Build a VIS-OCT platform combining 480 nm visible-light OCT, 840 nm near-infrared OCT and an autofluorescence detector. Use an A2E-stained reference target to obtain absolute fundus autofluorescence values.
Yannis Paulus
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biomedical Engineering
Upgrade a combined photoacoustic microscopy, optical coherence tomography and fluorescence microscopy system to image rabbit eyes in real time, without harming the eye.
The school
Ohio State University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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