Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe visual loss among the elderly. Researchers had previously identified several relatively common genetic variants which together predict a person's increased risk for AMD, but a significant number of persons without the disease also have these variants. Now, for the first time, investigators have been able to clearly show a specific rare mutation called CFH R1210C that predicts a very high risk of AMD and is extremely uncommon among individuals who do not have the disease. Although it is a rare variant, accounting for about 1% of the total cases, it is highly related to familial disease and earlier age of onset. This research was published online on October 23, 2011 in Nature Genetics. The paper is a collaborative effort among investigators from Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine; Brigham and Women's Hospital; Massachusetts General Hospital; Duke University; and Johns Hopkins University. "Our paper shows that there is a genetic variant that confers high risk of the development of AMD; this finding not only clearly links CFH gene dysfunction to disease, but also might help to identify people who need to be screened more closely," said first author, Dr. Soumya Raychaudhuri, a researcher in the Divisions of Genetics and Rheumatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to this publication, it was known that genetic variation within the CFH gene influenced risk of AMD in individuals. In the current study, researchers conducted sequencing and genotyping of CFH in 2,423 AMD cases and 1,122 controls in the laboratory of senior author Dr. Johanna M.Login Or Register To Read Full Story