http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Researchers have discovered that using two kinds of therapy in tandem may be a knockout combo against inherited disorders that cause blindness. While their study focused on man's best friend, the treatment could help restore vision in people, too. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-one-two-key.html Ophthalmology Tue, 09 Apr 2013 09:38:51 EST news284719124 Vision scientists long have thought that lack of very long chain fatty acids in photoreceptor cells caused blindness in children with Stargardt type 3 retinal degeneration, an incurable eye disease. But researchers at the University of Utah's John A. Moran Eye Center have shown in a new study that lack of these fatty acids does not cause blindness, meaning that the search for the mechanism that robs sight from children with the disease must start anew. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-long-suspected-eye-disease.html Ophthalmology Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:02:40 EST news282240153 (Medical Xpress)—A possible link between colour vision and the development of myopia - or near-sightedness - has been discovered by an international group, including a researcher from The University of Western Australia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-colour-vision-link-myopia.html Ophthalmology Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:23:18 EST news281344934 After years of research, the first bionic eye has seen the light of day in the United States, giving hope to the blind around the world. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-bionic-eye.html Ophthalmology Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:21:02 EST news279310852 Zebrafish, the staple of genetic research, may hold the answer to repairing damaged retinas and returning eye-sight to people. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-zebrafish-retinas-eyesight-people.html Ophthalmology Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:33:59 EST news278854432 Independent clinical trials, including one conducted at the Scheie Eye Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine, have reported safety and efficacy for Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a congenital form of blindness caused by mutations in a gene (RPE65) required for recycling vitamin A in the retina. Inherited retinal degenerative diseases were previously considered untreatable and incurable. There were early improvements in vision observed in the trials, but a key question about the long-term efficacy of gene therapy for curing the retinal degeneration in LCA has remained unanswered. Now, new research from the Scheie Eye Institute, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that gene therapy for LCA shows enduring improvement in vision but also advancing degeneration of affected retinal cells, both in LCA patients and animal models of the same condition. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-complexity-gene-therapy-congenital.html Genetics Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:11:51 EST news278075492 (Medical Xpress)—Blind mice can see again, after Oxford University researchers transplanted developing cells into their eyes and found they could re-form the entire light-sensitive layer of the retina.  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-stem-cell-approach-successful-mice.html Ophthalmology Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:26:58 EST news276852389 All living cells keep their cellular calcium concentration at a very low level. Since a small increase in calcium can affect many critical cellular functions (an elevated calcium concentration over an extended period can induce cell death), powerful cellular mechanisms ensure that calcium concentration quickly returns to its low level. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-key-mechanism-calcium.html Neuroscience Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:16:08 EST news276430561 For the first time, Wisconsin researchers have taken skin from patients and, using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, turned them into a laboratory model for an inherited type of macular degeneration. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-cells-skin-eye-disease.html Genetics Thu, 08 Nov 2012 10:23:43 EST news271592604 Research conducted at the Angiogenesis Laboratory at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, has for the first time, identified the mode of death of cone photoreceptor cells in an animal model of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-elucidate-death-photoreceptor-cells-retinitis.html Ophthalmology Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:00:01 EST news264677694 A research team in the United Kingdom has found that insulin-like growth factor (IGF1) impacts cell transplantation of photoreceptor precursors by manipulating the retinal recipient microenvironment, enabling better migration and integration of the cells into the adult mouse retina. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-retina-transplantation-recipient-retinal-microenvironment.html Ophthalmology Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:00:10 EST news261240401 Gene therapy strategies to prevent and treat inherited diseases of the retina that can cause blindness have progressed rapidly. Positive results in animal models of human retinal disease continue to emerge, as reported in several articles published in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The articles are available free on the Human Gene Therapy website at http://www.liebertpub.com/hum. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-advances-inherited-retinal-diseases-highlighted.html Genetics Tue, 08 May 2012 12:51:42 EST news255700295 (Medical Xpress) -- For the first time, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have made early retina structures containing proliferating neuroretinal progenitor cells using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from human blood. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-scientists-eye-human-blood-derived-stem.html Ophthalmology Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:03:09 EST news250934581 Members of a University of Pennsylvania research team have shown that they can prevent, or even reverse, a blinding retinal disease, X-linked Retinitis Pigmentosa, or XLRP, in dogs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-gene-therapy-retinitis-pigmentosa-dogs.html Genetics Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:00:12 EST news246550009 Researchers at Ohio State University Medical Center and Nationwide Children's Hospital have developed a viral vector designed to deliver a gene into the eyes of people born with an inherited, progressive form of blindness that affects mainly males. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-ohio-state-viral-vector-genetic.html Ophthalmology Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:46:26 EST news239449490 A new research report published in The FASEB Journal will help ophthalmologists and scientists better understand a rare genetic disease that causes increased susceptibility to blue light, night blindness, and decreased vision called Enhanced S-Cone Syndrome or Goldman-Favre Syndrome. In the report, scientists found that the expression of genes responsible for the healthy renewal of rods and cones in the retina was reduced and that this problem originates in the photoreceptors themselves rather than in the adjacent retinal pigment epithelial layer as once thought. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-scientists-unravel-rare-genetic-disease.html Medical research Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:40:56 EST news234009584 Inspired by earlier successes using gene therapy to correct an inherited type of blindness, investigators from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, are poised to extend their approach to other types of blinding disorders. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-potential-gene-vector-broaden-treatment.html Medical research Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:00:05 EST news227966075 On rare occasion, the light-sensing photoreceptor cells in the eye misfire and signal to the brain as if they have captured photons, when in reality they haven't. For years this phenomenon remained a mystery. Reporting in the June 10 issue of Science, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that a light-capturing pigment molecule in photoreceptors can be triggered by heat, as well, giving rise to these false alarms. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-animals-dont-infrared-vision.html Neuroscience Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:31:07 EST news226852249 A team of American and Chinese scientists studying the role of stem cells in repairing damaged retina tissue have found that pigs represent an effective proxy species to research treatments for humans. The study, published in STEM CELLS, demonstrates how stem cells can be isolated and transplanted between pigs, overcoming a key barrier to the research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-pig-stem-cell-transplants-key.html Medical research Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:24:19 EST news221883844