UBC researchers discover hidden waste drainage system in the eye

Age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma affect millions of people globally, causing irreversible vision loss and blindness.

For over a century, the eye was believed to be a closed system, isolated from the body's waste-clearing networks — a belief that left the origins of glaucoma, macular degeneration, and other blinding diseases only partially understood. Researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto have now identified a hidden drainage pathway at the back of the eye, named the POLO pathway, that channels retinal waste directly into the lymphatic system. The discovery reframes these diseases not merely as problems of pressure, but as failures of the eye's own quiet housekeeping

UBC researchers discover hidden waste drainage system in the eye

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