As I wind down the week at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), I’d like to introduce an intriguing therapeutic approach to retinal degeneration that would be a home run if perfected. It’s called retinal regeneration, and it happens to be right in line with the National Eye Institute’s life-changing audacious goal, announced on Monday: “to regenerate the neurons and neural connections in the eye and visual system.”
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Posts tagged arvo
One of the promising emerging approaches to restoring vision in people with advanced retinal diseases is a form of therapy known as optogenetics. In essence, this type of treatment restores light sensitivity — and, potentially, meaningful vision — to people who have very little, if any, vision remaining. An important benefit of optogenetics is that it should work regardless of the underlying genetic defect causing the disease. While it is too early to speculate how well optogenetics will ultimately work, we’re hoping it ends up retiring a lot of white canes. Continue Reading…
I am always pleased to hear reports on human studies for retinal diseases. And such is the case with a research poster I just reviewed at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting. It described a new clinical trial underway for a potentially life-changing gene therapy for people with autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa (MERTK mutations) taking place at King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in Saudi Arabia.
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The National Eye Institute (NEI) just announced that fighting blindness — retinal degenerations, in particular — has gotten audacious. It’s potentially life-changing news for people with these difficult conditions.
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I am excited to be reporting to you live from Seattle where about 10,000 of the world’s top eye researchers are convening for the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). While researchers from many different ophthalmic fields are present at ARVO, it is the world’s largest gathering of retinal scientists. Continue Reading…
Dr. José Sahel
If you or someone you’re close to has a retinal degenerative disease, you should know about the vision-saving promise of a protein called Rod-derived Cone Viability Factor (RdCVF). It was discovered by Foundation-funded clinician-researchers Drs. José Sahel and Thierry Léveillard, of Institut de la Vision in Paris. In fact, they won the Foundation’s Board of Director’s Award in 2005 for the finding. It was a monumental effort, namely because they screened thousands of proteins to come up with the gem.
Dr. Robert MacLaren
I was very excited to learn here at ARVO that two early-stage gene therapy clinical trials – one for choroideremia taking place in the U.K., the other for autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa (arRP) caused by MERTK mutations underway in Saudi Arabia – are proceeding well thus far. It is important to keep in mind that safety is the primary focus in these Phase I studies.
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The Sunday morning poster session at ARVO included a Foundation-funded research effort from Oklahoma University (OU) in which Dr. Lily Wong and her colleagues used a nanoceria treatment to slow retinal degeneration in a mouse model of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP).
I invite you to join me, this coming week, in sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida – not for spring break, but for something even better. As is always the case this time of year, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) will host its international conference, providing thousands of eye professionals with the latest information on retinal research and technologies.
Tel Aviv, Israel
Now that I’m back from my trip to Israel, I wanted to offer a couple more posts about my visit, the first covering a fascinating research conference in Tel Aviv.
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Steve is highly respected for his expertise and tireless commitment to finding treatments and cures for vision-robbing retinal diseases. 
As the Foundation's senior science writer, Ben writes science and research articles for the Foundation’s website, newsletters and Eye on the Cure blog. 
As the Foundation's senior writer, Rich writes and edits content for all of the Foundation’s print and online publications, including its blog, Eye on the Cure. 