NIH scientists develop "digital twin" of eye cells to understand and treat age-related macular degeneration

NIH scientists develop "digital twin" of eye cells to understand and treat age-related macular degeneration Breakthrough modeling technology reveals how cells lose their organization in leading cause of vision loss. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-scientists-develop-digital-twin-eye-cells-understand-treat-age-related-macular-degeneration : A digital 3D image showing a polarized iRPE cell. It is very colorful with the cell border in magenta, the nuclei in cyan and the mitochondria in yellow. Representative image of a polarized iRPE cell. Phalloidin staining shows cell borders (magenta), Hoechst labels nuclei (cyan), while TOMM20 tagged with mEGFP was used to visualize mitochondria (yellow). National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers have developed a digital replica of crucial eye cells, providing a new tool for studying how the cells organize themselves when they are healthy and affected by diseases. The platform opens a new door for therapeutic discovery for blinding diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of vision loss in people over 50.