A New Approach to Vision Restoration for Inherited Retinal Diseases

Tuesday, August 22 2023 | 08 h 00 min | Vision Science

Dr. Michel Cayouette’s team (University of Montreal) has found a way to reactivate cells in the retina and turn them into light-sensing cells, potentially replacing those lost in retinal degeneration in work funded by Fighting Blindness Canada.

Vision loss in inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) is caused by death of photoreceptor cells in the retina. While gene therapy approaches may slow or stop photoreceptor degeneration, they cannot restore vision in advanced disease once a lot of photoreceptors are lost. Therefore, many researchers are looking at ways to replace lost cells and restore sight.

Dr. Cayouette’s team discovered that a type of cell in the retina, called a Müller glial cell, can be transformed into a cell that has some of the same properties and function as photoreceptor cells.  Turning on cells that are already in a person’s eye and could avoid the need for cell transplantation.

In the next steps, Dr. Cayouette’s team will be trying to improve the transformation technique to create cells that are as similar to photoreceptors as possible and therefore are more likely to regenerate vision.