Four words you never want to hear from the eye doctor are retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. Both are genetic disorders that can cause loss of vision and neither has a cure. A team of biomedical researchers at the University of Houston is now tackling both eye diseases by exploring a protein in the retina that links them: peripherin2 (prph2).

“Mutations in peripherin 2 are associated with a variety of retinal degenerative diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa, cone-rod dystrophy and multiple forms of macular dystrophy,” said Muna Naash, John S. Dunn Endowed Professor of biomedical engineering and principal investigator. “Peripherin2 mutations can also cause secondary defects in adjacent tissues including the retinal pigment epithelium and choroid, which hampers the development of therapeutics for these diseases.”