Foundation Co-Hosts Workshop Focused on Fast-Tracking Optogenetic Therapies
May 29, 2012 - The Foundation Fighting Blindness and Massachusetts Eye and Ear will unite researchers, retinal specialists, companies, regulators and the National Eye Institute (NEI) in Boston on Friday, June 1, for a unique workshop, titled “Optogenetic Therapies for Vision,” to examine the best clinical path for this promising approach to treat retinal diseases.
“We hope to map out how progress in optogenetic research will translate into clinical trials for patients losing vision and determine how the Foundation can invest resources to accelerate the process,” says Dr. Stephen Rose, the Foundation’s chief research officer. “Bringing together the necessary research and biotech players to advance lab studies into human trials is a major role the Foundation plays to move the needle beyond simply funding promising research.”
A relatively new field, optogenetics uses gene therapy to empower cells, including those in the retina, to respond to light. It’s a method that stands to benefit people with very advanced sight loss, and can work independent of the underlying genetic defect causing the disease. One optogenetic approach has already restored some vision in mice by enabling ganglion cells in highly degenerated retinas to convert light into electrical signals and send them to the brain to be interpreted as vision.
Co-chairing the workshop are Mass. Eye and Ear’s Richard H. Masland, Ph.D., and the University of California, Berkeley’s John Flannery, Ph.D. Top scientific minds from MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and several other renowned institutions will also be in attendance.
“Now is our opportunity to accelerate progress in this promising field,” says Dr. Masland, who is David Glendenning Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and associate chief and director of the Howe Laboratory of Ophthalmology at Mass. Eye and Ear. “The basic preclinical animal work is now done. Using optogenetics, we can restore at least a limited type of vision in mice that are blind from the same types of retinal degeneration that afflict human patients. This conference gathers representatives of the best research groups in the world. Our task will be to tackle the next steps – those that move us down the road to evaluating this therapy in humans.”
Based on workshop outcomes, the Foundation plans to issue a request for applications for optogenetics projects that will be funded with at least $1.5 million allocated for such research. Earlier this year, the Foundation gave a $250,000 grant to Michigan-based RetroSense Therapeutics to develop an optogenetic treatment that delivers the genes of green algae to the retina for restoring vision. Foundation-funded researchers in France and Switzerland are also developing a treatment that would resurrect cone cells that have stopped working, with the goal of launching a clinical trial of the treatment within three years. |
