Our laboratory is very interested in understanding how lysosomes and autophagy play a role in physiological aging. We have shown that in the aged retina there is a decrease in the cells' ability to induce autophagy and that this correlates with night vision loss and the death of light-sensitive cells, the photoreceptors. We have shown that this phenotype is very similar to that observed in the retina of autophagy-deficient animals and is also observed during retinal aging in humans.

On the other hand, our studies show that autophagy deficient animals have a phenotype of accelerated aging being more susceptible to age-associated diseases, such as glaucoma and age macular degeneration. Our research focuses on understanding what are the alterations both at the cell and tissue level that accelerate this susceptibility. Our aim is to search for new therapeutic targets that can be used for these and other age-associated diseases