Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) damages are the ultimate and common process characterizing degenerative retinopathies, like glaucoma. In these diseases, no treatment is yet available to directly target RGC degeneration. Previously, we reported that a retinal conditioned medium was able to increase adult RGC survival in pure cultures 1. Our aim was to therefore identify RGC neuroprotective molecules contained in this medium. Here, we found that endogenous VEGF could be a good candidate for RGC neuroprotection strategies Address for correspondence: nicolas.froger@inserm.fr References 1 Fuchs C et al. (2005). Retinal-cell-conditioned medium prevents TNF-alpha-induced apoptosis of purified ganglion cells. IOVS 46:2983-2991. 2 Barres B et al. (1988) Immunological, morphological, and electrophysiological variation among retinal ganglion cells purified by panning. Neuron 1: 791-803. 3 Vallazza-Deschamps et al. (2005) Excessive activation of cyclic nucleotide-gated channels contributes to neuronal degeneration of photoreceptors. Eur J Neurosci 22:1013-1022 4 Ruiz de Almodovar C et al. (2009) Role and therapeutic potential of VEGF in the nervous system. Physiol Rev. 89(2):607-648.