Devi Deliyanti and Jenny Wilkinson-Berka awarded DARP grants for retinopathy research

Congratulations to Dr Devy Deliyanti and Professor Jenny Wilkinson-Berka on being awarded Diabetes Australia Research Program (DARP) grants for their research on diabetic retinopathy!



Dr Devy Deliyanti

Retinal disease is the most feared complication of diabetes, with almost all patients experiencing some visual disturbances and some patients progressing to severe vision loss. Diabetic retinopathy is characterised by damage to small blood vessels in the retina which can proliferate and leak blood into the vitreous cavity of the eye. Dr Deliyanti and Prof Wilkinson-Berka are investigating two very different approaches to the problem.

Congratulations to Prof Jenny Wilkinson-Berka on JDRF grant!

The diabetic retinopathy research group. L-R: Mr Jack Jerome,
Ms Osanna Wong, Mr Saeed Alrashdi, Dr Devy Deliyanti,
Professor Jenny Wilkinson-Berka

Congratulations to Professor Jenny Wilkinson-Berka on the award of almost 1 million dollars from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF) New York to commence in October 2017. The grant is for 3 years and titled, Boosting the immune system to treat diabetic retinopathy.

The purpose of the JDRF award is to determine if boosting immunosuppressive T regulatory cells (Tregs) reduces the vision-threatening damage to the retinal vasculature that can occur in people with diabetes.

A cardiorenal drug helps in diabetic retinopathy

Dr Devy Deliyanti, lead author and Prof
Jenny Wilkinson-Berka, last author.

A Monash University-Melbourne University collaboration has found that FT011, a novel cardiorenal protective drug, reduces inflammation, gliosis and vascular injury in rats with diabetic retinopathy.

Publication: Inhibition of NOX1/4 with GKT137831: potential novel treatment for a variety of vision-threatening retinopathies

Dr Devy Deliyanti and Prof Jennifer Wilkinson-Berka

with Devy's PhD thesis. 

Inflammation and the excess production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) contribute significantly to the pathogenesis of ischemic retinopathies such as diabetic retinopathy and retinopathy of prematurity. Department of Immunology's Prof Jennifer Wilkinson-Berka and Dr Devy Deliyanti have hypothesized that GKT137831, a dual inhibitor of NADPH oxidases (NOX) 1 and NOX4, reduces inflammation in the ischemic retina by dampening the pro-inflammatory phenotype of retinal immune cells as well as macroglial Müller cells and neurons. They have concluded that NOX1/4 enzyme inhibition with GKT137831 has potent anti-inflammatory effects in the retina, indicating its potential as a treatment for a variety of vision-threatening retinopathies.

Reference: Deliyanti D, Wilkinson-Berka JL. Inhibition of NOX1/4 with GKT137831: A potential novel treatment to attenuate neuroglial cell inflammation in the retina. J Neuroinflammation. 2015 Jul 30;12:136.Link