Has UVa Found a Cure for Macular Degeneration?

Dr. Ambati and his team have worked on dry macular degeneration for over a decade.
Now, they might have found drugs to treat this disease - clinical trials will soon be underway. /
Picture: Marguerite Gallorini

Macular degeneration may not get as much attention as Alzheimer's disease or breast cancer, but nearly one-third of people over 80 are affected by it. One physician at the UVa School of Medicine says they may have found a cure. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini reports.

Listen

Listening...

1:59

Macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss, affecting two million Americans over 40, with 7 million more at risk of developing the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jayakrishna AMBATI: Actually if you look at the number of patients with macular degeneration just in the U.S., it dwarfs all the patients with Alzheimer's and most cancers combined.

That number is projected to double over the next 15 years, says Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, the director of the Center for Advanced Vision Science at UVA.

AMBATI: Macular degeneration typically starts affecting people in their fifties and sixties. Up to a third of patients who are in their eighties and nineties have macular degeneration, so it's clearly an age-associated condition. And that's all the more alarming given the aging of our population.

The so-called wet form of the disease, in which abnormal blood vessels break and leak fluid near the retina, can be treated. But the more common dry form, characterized by small deposits forming on the retina, still has no cure – and overtime, it results in loss of vision. But Dr. Ambati and his team have worked on dry macular degeneration for the past 15 years – and it’s starting to pay off.

AMBATI: Over the last decade, our lab has actually made some very foundational discoveries, and we have identified what we believe are the culprits that cause the cells in the retina to die in dry macular degeneration. That’s the reason why people lose their vision. So we have found that there is an accumulation of toxic substances and those build up and kill the cells. So we have identified the precise mechanisms by which these toxic molecules are killing the cells and we have also identified drugs that, in various models, can prevent this death.

Clinical trials will begin soon, and if the drugs work, they should be approved within the next three to five years.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Charlottesville SPCA Helps Florence-Afflicted Four-Leggeds in N.C.

Angie Gunter, Executive Director of the
Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA, and
her dog Birdie. / Courtesy Angie Gunter

Charlottesville was spared from the worst of Hurricane Florence, but the community is trying to do its share to help out neighbors who were less lucky. As WMRA's Marguerite Gallorini reports, Charlottesville’s SPCA is helping out some four-legged friends in North Carolina.

Listen

Listening...

1:17

[ANGIE GUNTER: How many adoptions have we had today?]

Following Hurricane Florence, four employees from the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA were sent down to New Bern, North Carolina to bring some animals back.

ANGIE GUNTER: There's no chance that these animals belong to anyone else. They were already "homeless," but in a pound.

This is Executive Director Angie Gunter.

GUNTER: The reason for bringing these animals back - it was a total of 30: 16 dogs, 14 cats - is to make space for those that are displaced by the storm in hopes that families can be reunited with their pets.

[Dogs barking at the shelter]

The SPCA partnered with the Best Friends Animal Society and the Humane Society of the United States; they also brought supplies donated by the Petco Foundation down to New Bern.

GUNTER: These folks have been devastated, they're without everything. So just giving them large crates, dog food, cat food, it really helped out the shelter there.

As it stands, the mission is ongoing.

GUNTER: Last year when we helped with Hurricane Harvey and Irma, we took 183 animals total. But that was over a long period of time, so we're just getting started with this. It requires financial resources; it also requires community members adopting the animals that we have so we're just truly grateful to this community for allowing us to do this life-saving work.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Brett Kavanaugh: Outlook for SCOTUS from the Miller Center

At the Miller Center Tuesday, Sept. 11, Supreme Court expert Barbara Perry (l) interviewed UVA law professors Saikrishna Prakash (c) and Micah Schwartzman (r) about the makeup of the new court. /
Youtube Snapshot

The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to take the place of Justice Anthony Kennedy was the subject of a forum at the Miller Center yesterday. Supreme Court expert Barbara Perry talked about the makeup of the new court with UVA law professors Saikrishna Prakash and Micah Schwartzman. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini reports.

Listen

Listening...

1:12

Justice Kennedy was seen as a swing vote – or deciding vote – especially on social issues, as UVa Law professor Micah Schwartzman explains.

MICAH SCHWARTZMAN: He was a conservative centrist: on a range of cases, he really was the deciding vote. You might have expected him to side with a conservative majority to reject abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, but he didn't do that; you might have expected that he would side with a conservative block too to eliminate affirmative action, but he didn't quite do that. Justice Kennedy voted with the liberals on the Court to narrow the scope of those rights but not to reverse them outright. The question will be: What happens to those rights after he is gone?

The balance of the Court will shift with a new member. So could that affect what we call "settled" laws?

SAIKRISHNA PRAKASH: The idea that everything that we have now will be with us forever, I think, is not borne out by any experience.

This is Saikrishna Prakash, another UVa Law professor and Miller Center senior fellow.

PRAKASH: Micah mentioned one case last term: the controversial case of union fees, where they overturned a case involving the First Amendment. That's going to happen on both the Left and the Right. I think what people are most concerned about is Roe v. Wade, and they have reason to be concerned.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Cville Pride Prepares Its 7th Festival

What started as informal LGBTQ community picnics of 100 people grew into a full-blown festival. Last year, it attracted around 8000 people. The Charlottesville Pride Festival takes place each year in September, and is 100% volunteer-led. / Credit Guillermo Ubilla

Preview events for the seventh annual Charlottesville Pride Festival began over the weekend. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini reports.

Listen

Listening...

1:19

Last year, the Pride Festival attracted more than 8,000 people. And this year, twice as many vendors are participating, according to Amy-Sarah Marshall, the founding President of the Charlottesville Pride Community Network.

AMY-SARAH MARSHALL: People just want more and more and more! [laughs]

This is a pretty big feat, considering how the festival is put together:

MARSHALL: This is all volunteer-led, this is all based on sponsors, this is all based on community support. Everybody's welcome to perform: for us it's about the community celebration.

Expect a week of family-oriented events, business cocktail hours, karaoke, and two free movie screenings: Moonlight, and Weekend.

MARSHALL: Because of all the events last year with August 12, I think our area has become aware of how important it is to be visibly supportive of things that we believe in, and not just assume everything is fine. We still do have a lot of work to do, we still do have a lot of youth, especially, who face just higher levels of mental health issues. So that's why we keep doing this.

The festival itself happens Saturday between 11am and 7pm at the Sprint Pavilion - with shows, performances, and competitions.

This story appeared on WMRA News.
More information on the festival at cvillepride.org.

Miller Center Talk: 1967 Riots and the Kerner Commission

Historian Steve Gillon spoke at the Miller Center in Charlottesville Thursday, Sept. 6 to discuss his new book about the Kerner Commission and the investigation into riots that swept the country in 1967./ Youtube Snapshot

More than 50 years ago, race riots swept across the United States during what became known as the “long, hot summer of 1967.” Historian Steve Gillon spoke at the Miller Center in Charlottesville Thursday to discuss his new book about the appointed by President Lyndon to investigate the unrest. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini reports.

Listen

Listening...

1:16

In July 1967, race riots in Newark and Detroit lasted several days, and killed and injured hundreds of people. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was set up, and a team of social scientists were stunned by what they saw on the field, says author Steve Gillon:

STEVE GILLON: These field reports are intensely critical of the police. They show that the one common thread that ran through all of the riots: that everybody who participated in the riots either was a victim of police brutality or had witnessed police brutality.

The commission issued its report in 1968. While its overall proposals were largely disregarded by President Johnson, some of its recommendations on law enforcement did have an impact.

GILLON: There is a real effort, after 1968: a number of police organizations meet with members of the commission, they take their recommendations seriously and they incorporate them. One of the central recommendations that the commission had was that the police not be militarized, and that when events take place, there are ways of controlling without bringing in tanks. There was a positive impact of the commission on policing; I think it’s – we’re going backwards in some ways.

This story appeared on WMRA News.