Contains the proceedings of the XVI International Symposium on Retinal Degeneration (RD2014)
to be held July 13-18 2014 at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove California. A
majority of those who will speak and present posters at the meeting will contribute to this
volume. The Symposium addresses the blinding diseases of inherited retinal degenerations which
have no effective treatments and age-related macular degeneration which has no cures despite
the fact that it is an epidemic among the elderly with 1 in 3-4 affected by the age of 75. The
RD2014 Symposium will focus on the exciting new developments aimed at understanding these
diseases and providing therapies for them.The volume will present representative
state-of-the-art research in almost all areas of retinal degenerations ranging from
cytopathologic physiologic diagnostic and clinical aspects animal models mechanisms of cell
death molecular genetics and developing potential therapeuticmeasures such as gene therapy
and neuroprotective agents for potential pharmaceutical therapy and several sight restoration
approaches including optogenetics. While advances in these areas of retinal degenerations will
be included several new topics either were in their infancy or did not exist at the time of
the last RD Symposium RD2012. These include many new developments in sight restoration using
optogenetics retinal or RPE cell transplantation stem cell approaches and visual prosthetic
devices. In addition major advances will be presented in other basic mechanisms in age-related
macular degeneration several new aspects of gene and antioxidant therapy and revolutionary new
imaging and functional testing that will have a huge impact on the diagnosis and following the
course of retinal degenerations as well as to provide new quantitative endpoints for clinical
trials. The retina is an approachable part of the central nervous system (CNS) and there is a
major interest in neuroprotective and gene therapy for CNS diseases and neurodegenerations in
general. It should be noted that with successful and exciting initial clinical trials in
neuroprotective and gene therapy including the restoration of sight in blind children the
retinal degeneration therapies are leading the way towards new therapeutic measures for
neurodegenerations of the CNS. Many of the successes recently reported in these areas of
retinal degeneration sprang from collaborations established at previous RD Symposia and many
of those will be reported at the RD2014 meeting and included.
