JMU MANUFACTURES RARE PROTEIN FOR DRY-EYE SYNDROME TREATMENT

From: Media Relations

Dr. Robert McKown
March 9, 2005

HARRISONBURG, Va. — A protein that may keep human eyes from feeling like sandpaper — a condition known as "dry-eye syndrome" that affects 35 million Americans — is being reproduced at James Madison University.

The protein lacritin is found naturally in tears, but cannot be harvested in sufficient quantities from tears to allow for testing or use in any new treatments.

"Lacritin is secreted from a gland behind the eye that escaped scientific detection for many years," said Robert McKown, a JMU professor of integrated science and technology who is heading up the project. "It may be involved in stimulating new tear production and, if so, could form the basis of a revolutionary treatment for dry-eye syndrome."

Dry-eye syndrome can range in severity from mild irritation to a severe inflammation complicated by reduced vision or blindness. Sufferers can experience redness, light sensitivity, a feeling of grittiness and ocular discharge. Since aging is one of a number of causes of dry-eye syndrome, the condition will likely become more common as baby boomers grow older.

"That's where JMU's biotechnology laboratories entered the picture," McKown said. "In collaboration with Gordon Laurie, a professor at the University of Virginia who discovered and named lacritin, we cloned, reproduced and purified this protein from genetically engineered bacteria."

Using a federal grant from the National Institutes of Health, the lacritin produced at JMU is being used in preclinical animals tests at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Those tests, which will determine the effectiveness of lacritin to increase tear production, will be completed and the results made public in the fall.

Scientists, McKown noted, accomplished the same thing with insulin, which for years was available only in whatever quantities could be extracted from animals. When cloning became possible, he said, insulin was reproduced in amounts that far exceeded what could be harvested from animals.

"Although JMU could eventually see a financial gain from manufacturing lacritin for medical use, the real excitement here is the knowledge that what we're doing may relieve human suffering," McKown said.

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