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Article History

Received: 11 February 2025

Accepted: 5 June 2025

First Online: 15 August 2025

Acknowledgements

: We thank I. Micu and R. Delaney of the Advanced Imaging and Histology Core Technology Unit at Queen’s University Belfast for their technical assistance and use of the microscopes. We also thank the staff of the Biological Service Unit at Queen’s University Belfast for their care of the rats and assistance with animal procedures. Our sincere thanks go to the eye donors for their invaluable contribution to diabetic retinopathy research. Some of the data presented here were previously shared as a platform presentation titled ‘2-Hydrazino-4,6-dimethylpyrimidine (2-HDP) as a Novel Therapeutic for the Neurovascular Pathology of Diabetic Retinopathy’ at The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Annual Meeting 2022, held in Denver, USA, from 30 April to 4 May 2022.

: The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

: This study was supported by grants from Diabetes UK (18/0005791), the Health & Social Care R&D Division, Northern Ireland (STL/4748/13) and the Medical Research Council (MC_PC_15026). The funding bodies had no involvement in the study’s design, data collection, analysis, interpretation or manuscript writing.

: The authors declare that there are no relationships or activities that might bias, or be perceived to bias, their work.

: TC and AS conceived the project. JA, ET, TF, CB, EB, SA, PC, CM, AR and PB performed the experiments and analysed the data. ET and MU conducted the MD simulations. TL contributed human retinal samples and advised on the design and interpretation of these experiments. TC, JA and ET wrote, edited and reviewed the paper. All authors revised the paper for intellectual content and approved the final version for publication. TC is the guarantor of the integrity of the work.