EyeWorld India June 2019 Issue

EWAP JUNE 2019 69 NEWS & OPINION by Maxine Lipner EyeWorld Senior Contributing Writer Honing in on device screens New insight into how blue light may damage eyes Editors’ note: Dr. Karunarathne JCU PQ ƂPCPEKCN KPVGTGUVU TGNCVGF VQ JKU EQOOGPVU Contact information Karunarathne: Ajith.Karunarathne@UToledo.edu W hile it’s well known that blue light can damage vision and lead to macular degeneration, until recently scientists had little idea why. A study 1 published in -Vˆi˜ÌˆwV Reports indicates what may happen to photoreceptor cells in the presence of blue light, according to Ajith Karunarathne, PhD , assistant professor, biochemistry department, University of Toledo, Ohio. Initially, investigators in Dr. Karunarathne’s lab were focused on engineering photoreceptors and inserting them in cancer and other types of cells, he explained, adding that one of the things that they needed to do was introduce a molecule known as retinal into cells. Although those cells had nothing to do with vision, “we found that when we exposed these cells to blue light they die,” Dr. Karunarathne said. “So then we introduced retinal without having any photoreceptors in these cells and exposed the cells to blue light.” Once again, the cells died. However, when exposed to other colors of light, this did not occur. “Also, when we exposed cells to just blue light without retinal, nothing happened,” Dr. Karunarathne said. Investigators started examining how this process might work in a similar situation ˆ˜ ̅i iÞi° º7i V>˜ ÀiyiVÌ œÀ completely eliminate UV light entering the eye, but the human eye is transparent to blue light, so blue light gets in,” he said, adding that this gets focused on the retina. Meanwhile, the retinal, which is a vitamin derivative, is continuously produced by the eye. Graduate students working in Dr. Karunarathne’s lab. 6JKU CTVKENG QTKIKPCNN[ CRRGCTGF KP VJG /CTEJ KUUWG QH EyeWorld . It has DGGP UNKIJVN[ OQFKƂGF CPF CRRGCTU JGTG YKVJ RGTOKUUKQP HTQO VJG #5%45 1RJVJCNOKE 5GTXKEGU %QTR