The 2013 Research Colloquium by ProRetina in Potsdam was entitled: “RETINAL DEGENERATION - Accelerating Progress in Research and Translation.

The Keynote lecture was given by Gerald Chader, Los Angeles on the topic of “RD Research: Moving from Scientific Darkness to the Enlightened Era of Clinical Trials.

Further highlights were the talks by Antje Grosche, Leipzig on the “The role of the Müller glia cell in health and disease”; Volker Busskamp, Boston on “Genetic reactivation of photoreceptors”; Antje Biesemeier, Tübingen on “Melanin and lipofsucin granules in the RPE and their impact on future therapies” and Souska Zandi, Genf on “The influence of macrophage polarization on choroidal neovascularization creates novel treatment options”. In a further session interesting talks were given by Ulrich Dirnagl, Berlin: “Failure of bench to bed translation: Lessons learned in stroke research”; Michael Brand, Dresden: “Retina Regeneration in Zebrafish – how do they do it?”; Peter Charbel-Issa, Bonn: “Gene therapy – from bench to bedside” and Bernhard H. F. Weber, Regensburg: “High-Throughput Analysis in DNA Testing ”.