May is “Healthy Vision Month,” a good time to celebrate the past accomplishments of scientists and clinicians in advancing vision health and to draw attention to the importance of the sense of sight. The occasion also brings back memories of animal right activists distributing pamphlets at UCLA declaring that “blindness is not a life threatening disease” … Continue reading Open your eyes: go blind for a day!
Tag: blindness
Breakthrough of the Year (almost!)
As the year draws to a close it’s time to reflect on an exciting year of animal research, and there seems no better place to start than with the top 10 breakthroughs of the year as selected by the prestigious scientific journal Science. Science is of course a general science magazine, and the choices reflect … Continue reading Breakthrough of the Year (almost!)
Gene therapy for blindness – when dogged determination pays off!
Leber's congenital amaurosis is a progressive disorder that affects about 3,000 Americans, and hundreds of thousands worldwide, and causes a progressive loss of vision that usually results in blindness. The disease, for which there has until now been no effective treatment, is caused by a mutation in the encoding RPE65, an enzyme which is crucial … Continue reading Gene therapy for blindness – when dogged determination pays off!
Blind Dogs Lead Researchers to Treatments
Leber’s congenital amaurosis (LCA) is a form of blindness that affects about 1 in 80,000 people. This inherited disease, in which the retina progressively degenerates, results in severe loss of vision, and frequently patients can only see well enough to count fingers or see bright lights. Unfortunately, many of these patients also experience eye pain from … Continue reading Blind Dogs Lead Researchers to Treatments
Speaking of Research 