Tech news

29 January 2021
Winter 2021

A glance at what’s happening in the world of technology.

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Gene therapy study offers hope to IRD sufferers

The visual function of mice suffering from inherited retinal disease (IRD) was restored in a US study hailed as a breakthrough.

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), used new-generation CRISPR technology – known as base editing – to demonstrate a new therapeutic modality for a wide range of IRDs.

Co-author Krzysztof Palczewski, professor at the UCI’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, said: “We provide evidence of the clinical potential of base editors for the correction of mutations causing IRDs and for restoring visual function.

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Related further reading

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of irreversible sight loss in the UK and affects over one million people, which is predicted to rise by 100,000 cases to 1.145 million people by 2030*.

The government has progressed its commitment to moving more care from hospitals to communities.

The College of Optometrists has published its first issue of Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics (OPO), its flagship international and interdisciplinary research journal for contemporary vision science and optometry, with its new publishing partner Springer Nature this month.