Our Pacific Northwest: UW Aims to Restore Sight to the Blind

Our Pacific Northwest

UW Aims to Restore Sight to the Blind

NWCN  reported this week findings made by a research team at the University of Washington last year will be published in the July 26, 2013 issue of Neuron journal. According to the report, medical researchers at UW, with the help of fellow researchers at the University of California and the University of Munich, discovered a chemical which temporarily restores partial vision to blind mice. The researchers are now determined to develop an enhanced version with the goal of helping humans with degenerative blindness improve or even restore their sight. Although the chemical didn’t have a permanent effect on the mice, the report indicated the researchers hope it will someday grant those suffering from blindness an alternative to other procedures like gene or stem cell therapies which permanently alters the iris. Although the researchers have a long road ahead, they are on the right track of potentially curing degenerative blindness as well as retinitis pigmentosa, the most common form of inherited blindness.

Photo Via UW Medicine