Uncontrolled glaucoma results in blindness. When medical and laser therapy fail to control glaucoma, a surgical approach is needed for adequate intraocular pressure control. Glaucoma surgery fails because of the development of fibrosis that obstructs the flow of aqueous humor created by the procedure. Wound modulating agents (5-fluorouracil, Mitomycin C) have proven to be efficacious, however, these toxic agents are hard to control and produce undesired side effects. The following proposal is based upon our findings that selenium compounds attached to a solid matrix can inactivate cellular growth factors resulting in wound healing modulation. Preliminary results in vivo indicate that this selenium matrix is able to control fibrosis resulting in the enhancement of glaucoma surgery, without any undesired side effects, This grant proposal represents: 1) a study of the reactions involved in coupling selenium compounds to a solid matrix; 2) an in vivo study of the ability of these immobilized materials to modulate the wound healing process and their interaction with the surrounding tissue; and 3) a study of different support matrices that can be used to bind these bioactive molecules. This research should result in a covalently attached selenium biomaterial for use in human glaucoma filtering surgery.
