PVR

There is no current treatment for PVR other than surgery, which itself carries a high risk of causing or exacerbating PVR.

Their results, published in Science Translational Medicine, show the promise that mRNA-based therapies may one day offer patients with PVR and other retinal conditions.

"We were pleasantly surprised that we could even use this approach inside the eye without causing excessive inflammation. We hope that these early findings can usher in new treatment options for PVR and other eye diseases."

PVR is scar tissue that forms inside the eye, commonly after eye trauma, that can contract and detach the retina.

To develop a treatment for PVR, the researchers targeted a protein called RUNX1 that regulates the expression of a gene that turns eye cells into scar tissue.