Scientists at the University of Waterloo are developing synthetic drugs that might cure degenerative eye diseases like neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and more.

Researchers say the drug activates proteins that share information into a cell, that’ll improve blood vessel integrity in the eye and that also block fluid from building up in the retina.

Drug developer Sachdev Sidhu says they’re also working on similar medications to treat other parts of the body, like the lungs and stomach.

He mentions other degenerative diseases that prevent cells from growing, such as Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s, irritable bowel disease and Crohn’s disease  osteoporisis and lung fibrosis.

”What all these have in common, among other things is that at least some pathways that normally cause these tissues to regenerate are either defective or slow, because tissues don’t just sit around in the body, they have to be actively stimulated to grow,” Sidhu points out.

”What’s exciting for us is we have learned how to turn on these fundamental pathways, which nobody has been able to do since the three decades when things were first discovered.”

The eye drug’s currently in the initial phase of testing south of the border.

It could be several more years before it’s available to the public.