Host: The Japanese Society of Toxicology
Name : The 49th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Toxicology
Date : June 30, 2022 - July 02, 2022
Retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and genetic retinal disease have substantial effects on vision and quality of life. In addition to progress in antibody and nucleic acid drug development, new modalities such as genetic and regenerative therapy are currently an active area of research and development. Due to the presence of the inner and outer blood-retinal barriers (BRB) in the retinovascular endothelial cell and retinal pigment epithelial cell layers, delivery of drug/cells to the target cells via intravenous or other systemic dosing is not feasible. In light of this, recent focus is on bypassing the BRB by efficiently delivering drug/cells to target cells using intravitreal and subretinal administration; however intraocular administration techniques risk injuring or causing inflammation in the eye. Therefore, when conducting safety studies, correct understanding of the eye and use of established techniques are needed. Further, in order to assess the safety of direct intraocular administration of drug/cells, specialized examination is required in addition to standard safety study ophthalmological examination. Recently, examinations which can be extrapolated to humans such as optical coherence tomography and focal electroretinography for detailed evaluation of retinal morphology and function are being used in animal studies.
In this presentation I will introduce techniques and important points related to intravitreal and subretinal administration, as well as an overview of ocular toxicity evaluation and the usefulness of the various examinations.
