Lehigh Valley Center For Sight

Audio version: Ophthotech is a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing therapeutics and gene therapy solutions to treat retinal diseases. The company is aggressively pursuing therapies for orphan conditions like retinitis pigmentosa (RP), Stargardt disease , and Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), as well as common indications such as wet and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Most impressive, the company is taking on a multi-track strategy that includes retinal gene-therapy development, including delivery of over-sized genes and design of a two-step process of gene knockdown and replacement for autosomal dominant conditions. While these are the scientific challenges that keep most retinal researchers awake at night, Ophthotech thrives on them and sees them as opportunities to meet significant unmet medical needs for people with retinal diseases. Kourous Rezaei, MD, the company’s chief medical officer, says his team’s clinical and drug-development expertise, as...

The Foundation Fighting Blindness has announced funding for seven new research projects to advance the development of treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases. Each project will receive a total of $300,000 over a three-year period. The grants were selected through FFB’s annual call for research proposals from individual investigators. Seventy scientists submitted requests for funding. Applications were reviewed by FFB’s Scientific Advisory Board , which is comprised of the world’s leading retinal experts. “Many of the funded research projects are cross-cutting, meaning they have the potential to benefit a broad range of people, independent of the mutated genes causing their retinal diseases,” says Stephen Rose, PhD, FFB’s chief scientific officer. “Also, some projects address a critical gap in our understanding and modeling of disease, and have potential to move the field forward in a significant way.” Here are summaries of the seven new projects: Gene Therapy to Pres...

Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming solar eclipse and how to safely view the eclipse without losing vision from solar retinopathy! A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon casts its shadow, known as the umbra, on Earth. Partial or total eclipses occur somewhere on Earth about every 18 months as you can see here in in this photo showing solar eclipses since 2001. Photo credit: Wikipedia On August 21, the entire United States will experience at least a partial eclipse, but only those in what is known as the path of totality will witness a total solar eclipse. The eclipse will occur quite quickly, and even those within the path of totality will see, at most, 2 minutes and 40 seconds of the total solar eclipse. So how can you safely view the solar eclipse? Well, if you are IN the path of totality you will first witness a partial eclipse, and then the short time period of the total eclipse, and then the partial eclipse ...

Kristin McDonald For the last few years Kristin McDonald, a former actress and television spokeswoman, has been applying her make-up without the aid of her eyes due to retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that reduces a person’s peripheral vision until all that is left is a pinpoint of sight. Today, she is in a first stage study that is offering her and others hope that the injection of stem cells might be the mechanism that could slow, and maybe even halt the effects of this horrible disease. Discovery Eye Foundation helped support many of the preliminary translational studies necessary to bring the clinical trial to the FDA and get this exciting, novel approach to the patients. I am Tom Sullivan, Ambassador of Vision for the Discovery Eye Foundation, and I was rocked when my phone rang recently and I heard the sound of my friend Kristin crying. “What’s the matter?” I asked with real concern. Her tears were quickly replaced by laughter, joyous laughter. “It might be working,” she sa...

Hosted by the Foundation Fighting Blindness and Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, the Innovation Summit for Retinal Cell and Gene Therapy has emerged as one of the most essential events for researchers and companies developing treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases. In its fifth year, the Innovation Summit featured 40 presentations from industry experts from around the world. More than 250 people were in attendance. The event was held on April 27, the day before the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) in Honolulu. Spark Therapeutics, Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation (AGTC), REGENXBIO, and Nightstar Therapeutics sponsored the event. Summit co-hosts were Casey’s Mark Pennesi, MD, PhD, and Trevor McGill, PhD, and Steven Rose, PhD, FFB’s chief scientific officer. While the ARVO meeting is the world’s largest eye research conference with about 12,000 attendees, the Innovation Summit prov...

Cataract Surgery Metabolic changes of the crystalline lens fibers in your eye can lead to opacification and loss of transparency of the lens in the eye over time. This could lead to vision impairment. During cataract surgery, the cloudy natural “cataract” lens in your eye is removed and replaced with a synthetic lens to restore clear vision. Laser Cataract Surgery Laser cataract surgery was first performed in the USA in 2010. Due to the precision, quick turnaround time, consistency and convenience offered by this procedure, it has gained the support of ophthalmic surgeons worldwide. Most laser cataract surgeries take just 15 minutes and since the procedure only requires local anesthesia you will be awake during this procedure. How a laser cataract surgery is performed: The laser-assisted cataract system’s camera analyses your eyes and feeds detailed visuals of your eye lens to a specialized computer. This allows your surgeon to map the eye-lens surfaces and identify the ideal loc...

An important bill has been introduced to the US House of Representatives that has the potential to greatly increase research funding for all blinding eye conditions, including retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, Leber congenital amaurosis, Usher syndrome, and age-related macular degeneration. We at FFB are asking you to write or call your Member of the House of Representatives to ask them to support H.R. 6421, the Faster Treatments and Cures for Eye Diseases Act.  Co-sponsors of the bill include: Pete Sessions (TX), Sanford Bishop (GA), Fred Upton (MI), and Gus Bilirakis (FL). Visit Find Your Representative to get contact information for your House Member. This legislation, which has bipartisan support, would significantly increase funding for the translational biomedical research that will speed development of treatments and cures for all eye conditions, including inherited retinal diseases, from the lab out to the people and families who desperately need them. The...