Gulab Zode receives 2024 Research to Prevent Blindness Stein Innovation Award

Gulab Zode, PhD, professor of ophthalmology in the UC Irvine Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, recently received the prestigious Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) Stein Innovation Award, which provides funding to vision researchers with a goal of understanding the visual system and the diseases that compromise its function. The RPB awards are intended to provide seed money to proposed high-risk/high-gain vision science research which is innovative, cutting-edge and demonstrates out-of-the-box thinking.

Zode and his postdoctoral fellow, Balasankara Kaipa, PhD, will investigate whether lipid nanoparticles carrying mRNA for base editors selectively knock out the myocilin gene in the trabecular meshwork and rescue the mouse model of myocilin glaucoma. The long-term goal of his lab is to develop this genome-editing method to treat hereditary glaucoma. The lipid nanoparticles-mediated base editor mRNA delivery system will provide a higher safety profile due to minimum ocular inflammation and significantly less off-target effects. This innovative approach will provide a platform to utilize mRNA technology for delivering therapeutics targeting various diseases.

Zode’s lab studies the molecular mechanisms involved in the pathophysiology of glaucoma with primary focus on trabecular meshwork (a tissue that regulates intraocular pressure) with the goal to target these pathways for the treatment of glaucoma. Mutations in myocilin (MYOC) is the leading known genetic cause of glaucoma. Myocilin-associated glaucoma affects young kids and often progresses rapidly to vision loss, and it is often less-responsive to current medication since current treatments do not target the main pathology. Since mutation in myocilin causes a deleterious gain-of-function, knocking out MYOC via genome editing provides an ideal strategy to specifically target glaucomatous molecular pathways in the trabecular meshwork and provide a one-time “cure,” restoring normal intraocular pressure. In collaboration with Philip Felgner, PhD, professor in residence in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the School of Medicine. Zode  will utilize mRNA and lipid nanoparticle technology to deliver base editors to the trabecular meshwork to knock out mutant myocilin.