Mike O. Karl, PhD, from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and from the DFG Research Center for Regenerative Therapies
Dresden - Cluster of Excellence at the TU Dresden (CRTD) was awarded the "Prize EYEnovative" Novartis Pharma GmbH. He works on a human retina cell
model (retina organoid), developed from patients´own induced pluripotent stem cells. For his research, the scientist cooperated with Alexander Storch, professor of Neurodegenerative diseases, Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus.

The retina organoid is used to examine and characterize a disease which is called juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (NCL). JNCL causes the loss of visual capacity in childhood. At the age of 7 to 10, retina cells degenerate, than in the course of life other nerve cells also die.

Dr. Karl is convinced that compare to animal use the human cell-based models offers completely new opportunities to investigate the disease mechanisms of JNCL, to discover new therapeutic strategies as well as validate therapies, as stated in the recent press release.

The prize money is € 25,000.

Source:
https://idw-online.de/en/news629788
http://www.crt-dresden.de