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Showing posts with the label crystallin

New Eye Drops for Cataracts

The normal procedure when cataracts become problematic is surgery. This should change as new eye drops are adopted across the world. A chemical has been identified which stops the disease and reverses it. Luckily the chemical is soluble so formulation of eye drops should be easy. Cataracts develop when crystallin proteins clump together generally with age. Crystallins are the main element in the eye lens. When these proteins are damaged the lens does not function well. Using differential scanning fluorimetry, lanosteral was first found. It reduced the cumulative damage but it was not soluble and had to be injected. More work resulted in the isolation of "compound 29". This was soluble and worked just the same. The new compound stopped crystallins from forming dangerous amyloids. Furthermore, existing amyloids were dissolved. In tests on mice, their cataract affected lenses became clearer. Tissue taken from human cataract sufferers also became more transpa