Patent Allowance Allowed for Treatment of Retinitis Pigmentosa and AMD

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued RetroSense Therapeutics a Notice of Allowance for U.S. patent application (No. 12/299,574), which covers methods of restoring visual responses with a variety of optogenetic compounds. Specifically, the allowed application includes claims covering methods of restoring visual responses by delivering channelrhodopsin and variants thereof, as well as halorhodopsin to retinal neurons – with or without the use of cell-type specific promoters, including mGluR6 (Grm6). The subject opsins have been studied extensively and published on as means of vision restoration in retinal degenerative conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa and dry age-related macular degeneration.