Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Center for Preventive Ophthalmology and Biostatistics (CPOB)

Center for Hereditary Retinal Degenerations

Progress in molecular therapies of inherited retinal degenerations (IRDs) has prompted the need to characterize non-invasively IRDs at baseline and to monitor outcomes after treatment. The Center for Hereditary Retinal Degenerations (CHRD) has devised structural and functional outcomes that are now widely used in natural history studies and clinical trials. CHRD will provide consultation and collaboration in planning clinical trials and advise on the most potentially useful outcome measures for an IRD trial. Reading or grading results of functional testing (e.g. chromatic full-field stimulus testing, dark-adapted chromatic perimetry, and pupilometry) and structural testing (e.g. optical coherence tomography and especially outer retinal features) can be accommodated. CHRD investigators have authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications about IRDs in the past 30 years.