Image: Courtesy of Michael Tolentino
Signs of Aging The fundus, opposite the pupil, is shown. This patient has wet, age-related macular degeneration, which occurs when new vessels form to improve the blood supply to oxygen-deprived retinal tissue. The new vessels are delicate and break easily, causing bleeding and damage to surrounding tissue. Blood and lipid in the macula are present.

In the past few years, the media have written numerous, hopeful stories of how scientists are stifling tumors by inhibiting blood vessel growth. But the drugs based on this strategy--Endostatin, Neovastat, and thalidomide, for example--are still, in some cases, under unexpected scrutiny. As oncology researchers confront this reality, other investigators are looking at antiangiogenesis in a new way.

"Cancer is the disease that attracts everyone's attention, but there is angiogenesis research going on in other areas as well," says Peter J. Polverini, a neovascular specialist and dean of the University...

Interested in reading more?

Magaizne Cover

Become a Member of

Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!