Proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) is an eye condition that leads to blindness and can currently only be addressed with surgery. A team led by research hospital Massachusetts Eye and Ear and German biotech CureVac has designed an mRNA therapy that delivered a therapeutic gene transcript to the eyes of rabbits with the disease, reducing the harmful excess of scar tissue that is characteristic of the condition. The treatment also prevented further scarring in eye tissue collected from PVR patients during surgery and cultured in the lab, and it reduced the harmful growth of blood vessels in a mouse model of wet age-related macular degeneration, the researchers said. The results were published in Science Translational Medicine on Nov. 27. PVR can occur after surgery to repair a detached retina and is essentially a proliferation of scar tissue that prevents the retina from successfully reattaching. The only available treatment is to go under the knife again to remove the scar tissue and re-reattach the retina. If not effectively treated, PVR can cause vision loss in the affected eye.

Full research : mRNA therapy reduced scar tissue in rabbits with post-surgery eye condition.