Los Angeles: A new technique that has the potential to treat inherited diseases has been shown for the first time to hinder retinal degeneration in rats with a type of inherited blindness, scientists say, reports IANS.
Researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute in Los Angeles focused on inherited retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease with no known cure that can lead to blindness.
They used a technique known as CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat)/Cas9 to remove a genetic mutation that causes the blindness disease. CRISPR/Cas9 is adapted from a strategy used by bacteria to fight invading viruses. Though the study involved rats, it is an important milestone because of its potential implications for humans.
“Our data show that with further development, it may be possible to use this gene-editing technique to treat inherited retinitis pigmentosa in patients,” said Shaomei Wang from the institute’s Eye Programme.
