Patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) exhibit marked visual dysfunction and structural changes in both the inner and outer retinal layers, research findings indicate. Retinal function was evaluated using a number of tests, including contrast sensitivity, frequency doubling perimetry (FDP) and photostress testing. And semiautomatically segmented spectral-domain optical coherence …
retina
Gene Therapy Staves Off Blindness from Retinitis Pigmentosa in Canine Model
Gene therapy preserved vision in a study involving dogs with naturally occurring, late-stage retinitis pigmentosa, according to research funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The findings contribute to the groundwork needed to move gene therapy forward into clinical trials for people with the blinding eye disorder, for which there is currently no …
Scientists find a way to ‘shrink’ blind spot in human eye
The optic nerve that sends visual signals to the brain must pass through the retina which creates a hole in that light-sensitive layer of tissue. When images project to that precise location, we miss them. This blind spot can be ‘shrunk’ despite the fact that the hole in our visual field cannot be. The findings raise the possibility that similar methods might improve vision in people with …
Gut microbes linked to major autoimmune eye disease
One major cause of human blindness is autoimmune uveitis, which is triggered by the activation of T cells, but exactly how and where the T cells become activated in the first place has been a long-standing mystery. Autoimmune uveitis, which accounts for up to 15% of severe visual handicap in the Western world, affects the working-age population and significantly affects public health. Patients …
Proteomic Studies of Age-Related Ocular Diseases
A Cleveland Clinic lab has found evidence to support the theory that age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an inflammatory disease with varying ways to progress to advanced dry and wet AMD. Focusing on proteomic studies to discover biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of AMD and glaucoma, John W. Crabb, PhD, and his colleagues found many proteins associated with the immune response and …
RetroSense Granted Orphan Drug Designation for Retinitis Pigmentosa
RetroSense Therapeutics, LLC, a privately-held biopharmaceutical company, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation for the Company’s lead product RST-001 for the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Retinitis pigmentosa is a genetic condition which leads to the progressive degeneration of rod and cone photoreceptors (cells found in the …
Lab-Grown Retina from Stem Cells Responds to Light
...stem cell researchers have struggled to coax the malleable cells to form the 10 layers of the retina. And, crucially, no one had, before now, produced lab-grown retinal cells that they demonstrated would respond to light.Researchers at Johns Hopkins pulled it off, they reported in a paper published recently in Nature Communications. They cultivated a three-dimensional complement of retinal …
Smartphones become ‘eye-phones’ with low-cost devices developed by ophthalmologists
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed two inexpensive adapters that enable a smartphone to capture high-quality images of the front and back of the eye. The adapters make it easy for anyone with minimal training to take a picture of the eye and share it securely with other health practitioners or store it in the patient’s electronic record. The technology was …
Making Connections in the Eye
The human brain has 100 billion neurons, connected to each other in networks that allow us to interpret the world around us, plan for the future, and control our actions and movements. MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung wants to map those networks, creating a wiring diagram of the brain that could help scientists learn how we each become our unique selves. In a paper appearing in the Aug. 7 …
First successful transplant of retinas made from embryonic stem cells
For the first time, scientists have successfully transplanted light-detecting cells in the retina, grown from embryonic stem cells, into mice--a feat that could advance similar therapies using the artificial cells to treat degenerative eye diseases toward human trials. The animal transplant is a huge step for embryonic stem cell-based therapies, which have moved slowly to the clinic despite …