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PODCAST: Archived Interview (October 30, 2008)

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INTERVIEW: GENE THERAPY RESTORES VISION TO BLIND MICE - Interview with Richard Masland, PhD, Director, Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have used gene therapy to restore useful vision to mice with degeneration of the light-sensing retinal rods and cones, a common cause of human blindness. Their report, which appeared in the Oct. 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the effects of broadly expressing a light-sensitive protein in other neuronal cells found throughout the retina.

During this week's podcast, Dr. Richard Masland discusses the design of the study and what his team was actually able to demonstrate. He explains why melanopsin, which is usually produced in a subset of cells that are involved with establishing circadian rhythms, was chosen to do an experiment on vision. Dr. Masland also talks about the resultant levels of melanopsin expression in ganglion cells and how his research group was able to determine that the previously blind mice were now able to "see." He specifies the type of gene therapy method used in the research and offers his opinion on how this proof-of-principle study might be used to repair blindness in people with conditions like retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration.

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