PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A 10-year genetic study of glaucoma in African-Americans is advancing at the University of Pennsylvania, thanks to a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Experts hope the research will lead to better treatments.
The glaucoma study started in 2010. 10,000 African-Americans in Philadelphia participated.
“Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness for African-Americans, and it’s five times more prevalent and appears 10 years earlier in African-Americans as well," said Marquis Vaughn, the community outreach director for the Scheie Eye Institute, Penn's department of ophthalmology.
"There haven’t been a lot of studies to investigate to see specifically why African-Americans are over-affected.“
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Recently, the NIH awarded a $6.6 million grant to further Penn's research.
“With this award, we will start to re-contact patients and get more DNA from them and their family if they agree,” said Vaughn.
"They'll take all of the information we gathered from all of our participants, all of the DNA information, and look at all of the different genetic variants, so that we can start to come up with better treatments for people.”
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