Lighting up nerves could help people with eye condition Retinitis Pigmentosa

Lighting up nerves could help people with eye condition Retinitis Pigmentosa. New £2 million partnership to push forward research in an emerging field of science called optogenetics %0A " - Wednesday 27 January 2010 - By Colin Smith Scientists are developing a new genetic engineering technique called optogenetics that they hope could ultimately lead to a new treatment for people with the eye condition Retinitis Pigmentosa, in a £2 million funded project announced today, involving researchers from Imperial College London and European partners. Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is a group of hereditary eye disorders affecting approximately one person in every 3,500. In the early stages, this leads to poor night vision, leading to tunnel vision, which gradually narrows until there is a total loss of sight. RP inactivates cells in the eyes called rods, which are important for night vision. As RP progresses, these cells die and this eventually results in the loss of the remaining light sensitive cells. Optogenetics could ultimately enable scientists to re-engineer nerve cells in the eye so that they can be switched on with light rather than electrical impulses.