Vision Restoration Through the use of Gene Therapy
Vision Restoration and it's Advances Using Gene Therapy Blindness has yet to be cured, and throughout the years many different experiments and theories have been made and tested. Our technological advances dealing with vision restoration have varied through the years, and especially as we go off into the distant future different theories are created, and the cure for blindness seems to come closer within our grasp. Three years ago scientists went about trying to restore vision using electronic devices which was a new concept for many. This device called for a way of stimulating the neurons in the retina that were still left from various patients who were blind from end-stage photoreceptor deteriorating diseases like the common RP (retina pigmentosa) along with AMD (age-related macular degeneration). It was founded that before death, RP eyes that have slight or absolutely no light perception sight just had a small percentage of 4% or less of the nuclei left in the outer nuclear layer while the ganglion cell layer had 30% and inner layer 80% of its nuclei. Because of this partial degeneration, the retinal implant could stimulate electrically the retinal neurons that are still left and give functional sight (Humayun et al., 2
One method of gene therapy that could possibly be used to treat this disease is the transfer of regulatable therapeutic genes to the retina. In this experiment, animals at around ten weeks of age are being used, including some series of tests being done on 18-week old animals, which is around the time that the RCS retina has degenerated immensely and other intrusions are no use. Six months following the injection, an analysis was given on the eyes of one of the monkeys. The controlled eye was given an injection of solely a vehicle. At this point it was apparent that intraocular injection reduced the loss of photoreceptors, it wasn't quite sure whether it would have long-term benefits. Even with the amplified bipolar and photoreceptor amplitudes, there was no ERG response from the affected dogs (Acland et al. In the noninjected, vehicle only injected, and in the similar vector eyes the CNTF like immunofluorescense were not seen at all. At first there was a worry that before the experiment was underway, the administration of the controlled and experimental materials could possibly lead to eye pressure increase. RAAV vectors were injected containing ribozyme genes subretinally to the retina of rats before the photoreceptors had time to start deteriorating significantly. The rAAV-injected eyes had detected green fluorescence just four weeks after there had been no trace of it at all, had now been abundant in three out of four primates. On the contrary, dog B46 (untreated and unaffected) was oblivious to any of the object around it (Acland et al.
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