As the degenerative vision disease progresses, patients suffering from this ailment may develop terminal blindness. Researchers from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland claim to have found a cure for this disease. An unconventional therapeutic approach is assumed to retain vision.
Neurobiologists tested the proteins that seem to cause blindness in mice. Experts have apparently been able to bring back vision in the light-sensing cells of the retina. Dr. Thomas McKenna, program officer for ONR’s Neural Computation Program affirmed the identification of an approach to restore vision in blind mice with congenital macular degeneration.
The findings may be beneficial for the partial restoration of vision for blind patients. Further investigations will be undertaken to find a possible treatment for retinitis pigmentosa. The latter is known to be an incurable genetic eye disease.
The research was funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).