Lento Bio Aims to Reverse Tissue Stiffening in the Lens of the Eye
You might recall that an approach to reversing presbyopia by breaking a type of cross-link in the lens of the eye is in the fairly late stages of development. Cross-links stiffen the lens, making it hard to focus properly because the muscles of the eye are no longer able to produce enough force to obtain the desired result. The founders of a new company, Lento Bio, plan to do much the same thing for a different set of cross-link targets in the lens, those based on advanced glycation end-products, with the hope of improving upon the promising results already obtained via this strategy.
Lento Bio, Inc., a preclinical pharmaceutical company focused on developing small molecule therapeutics to target molecular damage driving age-related disease, announced its launch today. The company will initially focus on developing pharmaceutical eyedrops to treat a common vision disorder, presbyopia, or age-related farsightedness. Lento Bio will be supported and incubated by Ichor Life Sciences, a pre-clinical contract research organization, at Clarkson University's Peyton Hall Biotechnology Incubator.
Presbyopia is caused by stiffening of the eye lens, which stems from molecular crosslinks including advanced glycation end products (AGE) that cause tissue rigidity. The small molecule drugs being developed by Lento Bio will target underlying molecular damage accumulation with the goal of reversing the process of tissue-stiffening in the ocular lens. Upon successful completion of its first project, Lento Bio plans to apply its anti-glycation products more widely to include systemic diseases of aging.
"Lento Bio is starting from a solid foundation of established research into molecular aging damage and will focus development efforts towards the most accessible and relevant disease indications. Through bringing the problem to the science we aim to accelerate the creation of clinical assets and validate our disease hypothesis. We look forward towards collaborating with the scientific teams at Ichor and Clarkson University to pursue research and development of small molecule drugs."
Sure hope they are successful, start with the eyes, then on-wards toward the vascular system!
@bmack500
any treatment that gets to the clinic will also usher more funding in the area. And more scientific insingths on the whole cross-linking process, and hopefully on the aging as whole
Is it possible, that when applying the drops, the " runoff" will improve one's crepey under eye skin?
Targeting AGEs as a mechanism for delaying / reversing aging is one of the most obvious areas imaginable, good on LentoBio for taking the challenge. I really hope they're successful, because that would be a momentous event in human history.