Wednesday, April 05, 2006

'Prosthetic' retinal cells let blind mice see light

Source: Cell Press
Posted: April 5, 2006

Summary:

In an experiment that could offer a new pathway to restoring vision in people with inherited retinal degeneration, researchers have engineered cells in the eye to be light sensitive that were not before. Using a harmless virus, they introduced a gene for a light-sensitive protein into "inner retinal neurons" in a strain of mice with photoreceptor deficiency that resembles the defect in such inherited human disorders as retinitis pigmentosa.