Restoring Sight by Making Retinal Ganglion Cells Light Sensitive via Gene Therapy

Retinal degeneration causes blindness by destroying the photoreceptor cells in the retina. Some forms of degenerative blindness leave intact other cell populations, however. What if those populations could be granted some of the same mechanisms used by photoreceptor cells to pass signals to the optic nerve? Researchers here demonstrate a gene therapy that does just this, a most interesting feat of engineering. It is still a poor alternative to prevention of the condition, or restoration of lost photoreceptor cells, but it is no less impressive for it. This is truly an age of biotechnology. Scientists inserted a gene for a green-light receptor into the eyes of blind mice and, a month later, they were navigating around obstacles as easily as mice with no vision problems. They were able to see motion, brightness changes over a thousandfold range and fine detail on an iPad sufficient to distinguish letters. The researchers say that, within as little as three years, the gene therapy - delivered via an inactivated virus - could be tried in humans who've lost sight because of retinal degeneration, ideally giving them enough vision to move around and potentially restoring their ability to read or watch video. Correcting the genetic defect responsible for retinal degeneration is not straightforward, because there are more than 250 different genetic mutations responsible for retinitis pigmentosa alone. About 90 percent of these kill the retina's photoreceptor cells - th...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs