Blindness News and Research

RSS

UH Researcher Designs New Model Expressing the Most Common Disease Mutation in USH2A

Usher syndrome, a rare inherited genetic disease, is a leading cause of combined deafness and blindness with type 2A (USH2A) being the most common form.

18 Apr 2023

Study Paves the Way to Targeted Treatments for Stargardt Disease

A recent study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry revealed the key to a protein that commonly causes blindness.

5 Apr 2023

Newly Identified Rare Genetic Variants Could Point to One of the General Mechanisms Driving AMD

A study from the National Eye Institute (NEI) identified rare genetic variants that could point to one of the general mechanisms driving age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common cause of vision loss in older adults.

3 Apr 2023

FDA-approved compound promotes photoreceptor survival in lab models of inherited retinal ciliopathy

A National Eye Institute-led team has identified a compound already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that keeps light-sensitive photoreceptors alive in three models of Leber congenital amaurosis type 10 (LCA 10), an inherited retinal ciliopathy disease that often results in severe visual impairment or blindness in early childhood.

30 Mar 2023

BetaLife and A*STAR team up to accelerate the development of new cell-based therapy for diabetes

Up-and-coming local biotech startup BetaLife Pte Ltd ("BetaLife") is collaborating with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to accelerate the development of next generation cell-based therapy for diabetes.

22 Mar 2023

Genome editing proven effective to restore the vision of mice with genetic diseases

Chinese researchers have turned out to be successful in restoring the vision of mice with retinitis pigmentosa, which is considered to be one of the significant causes of blindness in humans.

20 Mar 2023

Newly discovered genetic mutation may be a root cause of severe cases of childhood glaucoma

An international team of scientists led by Mass Eye and Ear, a member of Mass General Brigham, and Boston Children's Hospital, has discovered a new genetic mutation that may be a root cause of severe cases of childhood glaucoma, a devastating condition that runs in families and can rob children of their vision by 3 years of age.

30 Jan 2023

Blending multiple maps uncover new genetic causes of blindness

In a new study, Ran Elkon and Ruth Ashery-Padan of Tel Aviv University, Israel, and colleagues discovered a new genetic risk factor for adult-onset macular degeneration (AMD) by combining a map of gene regulatory sites with disease-associated loci.

18 Jan 2023

3D “mini eyes” provide insight into genetically induced blindness

The development of “mini eyes” by researchers at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (UCL GOS ICH) has made it possible to study and comprehend the onset of blindness in the rare genetic disease known as Usher syndrome more.

From University College London 22 Nov 2022

New tool advances potential means to deliver gene therapy

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine claim to have successfully “slid” genetic instructions into a cell and produced essential proteins that were lacking from those cells using a cell’s normal process for creating proteins.

1 Nov 2022

Adults with congenital blindness experience striking recoveries of night vision after gene therapy

Adults with a genetic form of childhood-onset blindness experienced striking recoveries of night vision within days of receiving an experimental gene therapy, according to researchers at the Scheie Eye Institute in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

11 Oct 2022

Native 3D structure of the ciliary base witnessed for the first time

Because flaws in the cilia transport system can result in, for example, blindness or cystic kidneys, findings reported in Science offer new understandings of the molecular basis for different diseases.

20 Sep 2022

Adaptive optics imaging helps visualize the pathogenesis of choroideremia

Researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have demonstrated for the first time how cells across various tissue layers in the eye are impacted in individuals with choroideremia, a rare genetic disorder that causes blindness.

14 Sep 2022

Researchers discover the gene essential for the growth of photoreceptors

Srrm3 is a master regulator gene essential for the growth of photoreceptors, cells in the rear of the retina that catch and process light and transmit signals to the brain that allow vision, according to research, from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona.

14 Jul 2022

Researchers create novel human cell line to explore blinding eye disorders

Researchers at the LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence have created a novel, experimental human cell line from retinal pigment epithelial cells, under the supervision of Boyd Professor Nicolas Bazan, MD, PhD.

14 Jul 2022

Researchers analyze and demonstrate how organelles divide into cells

The research, headed by Professor Michael Schrader of the University of Exeter, looked at peroxisome dynamics and discovered new ways for them to divide.

From University of Exeter 10 Jun 2022

Study describes the importance of the autoimmune response in bacteria

CRISPR has made headlines in recent years for its potential to help patients with conditions as diverse as blindness and sickle cell disease. However, bacteria were already using CRISPR as an immune system to combat viruses long before humans adopted it to combat genetic disorders.

3 Jun 2022

Research highlights how cornea T cells may track and combat viral infections

According to a new study, the cornea creates a sensitive and restricted immune response to combat infections without causing visual damage.

30 May 2022

Researchers identify gene mutation to have the potential to induce higher intelligence in humans

When genes mutate, serious diseases of the human nervous system can result. Scientists from Leipzig University and the University of Würzburg have now used fruit flies to show how, in addition to the negative impact, mutation of a neuronal gene can have a beneficial impact—higher IQ in humans.

12 May 2022

UF study adds new dimension to the biology of local plant

A new University of Florida study has found that a local plant, the tall elephant's foot, can be pushy -; which wasn't previously known.

25 Apr 2022