Project description
Understanding how a healthy diet prevents age-related macular degeneration
Eating a nutritious diet rich in green, leafy vegetables is good for your eyes. In the case of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is one of the leading causes of blindness in the developed world, eating healthy is a proven preventive measure. Since no effective treatment exists, prevention is key. With this in mind, the EU-funded OpMaEye project will investigate how dietary modification or supplement intake may facilitate increase of the retinal carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin that form the macular pigment (MP) and prevent neovascular AMD. The project will further develop a practical and cost-effective optical approach (originally developed by the SeeCat ERC Advanced Grant project) that measures and maps macular pigment density.
Objective
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in Europe. Since there is a lack of effective treatment modalities, prevention is of signficant importance. There are some evidences that nutritional counseling or intervention might reduce AMD incidence or slow down its progression. In particular, dietary modification or supplement intake may facilitate the increase of the retinal carotenoids lutein (L) and zeaxanthin (Z) that form the macular pigment (MP) and prevent neovascular age-related macular degeneration. In such supplement treatments and follow-ups, regular MP density (MPD) measurements should be essential. Until today, instruments capable of measuring MPD are either psychophysical requiring the subjective responses of the patients (operating on variants of heterochromatic flicker photometry) or are advanced imaging devices that record hyperspectral images of the macula and surrounding areas of the retina. In these instruments, MPD is derived by the relative absorption of the blue part of the spectrum that is characteristic to the absorption spectrum of MP. These instruments are either difficult to use or very expensive. Within the SeeCat-ERC Advanced Grant project, we developed a completely new optical approach to measure and map the MPD. It is practical, compact, cost effective, and can be operated without extensive training and maintenance. In this PoC project (OpMaEye), we aim to further develop the instrument by designing a working compact prototype and performing initial validations.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine ophthalmology
- natural sciences physical sciences optics spectroscopy absorption spectroscopy
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-POC-LS - ERC Proof of Concept Lump Sum Pilot
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2020-PoC
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
30003 Murcia
Spain
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