Another Smartphone App for "High-Quality" Retina Photos

"A US team has devised a smartphone system for capturing high quality photos of retinas to help diagnose eye diseases. The cheap and easy-to-use system could bring the advantages of affordable telemedicine to ophthalmology clinics," according to Medical News Today. "The researchers, from Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, describe the new system and how they tested it in a recent online issue of Journal of Ophthalmology. The study evaluated the smartphone system's ability to capture photographs of the "fundus," or retina, in human and rabbit eyes." Read more.

Genes of the Retina Catalogued

Medical News Today reports that "investigators at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School have published the most thorough description of gene expression in the human retina reported to date. In a study published in the journal BMC Genomics, Drs. Michael Farkas, Eric Pierce, and colleagues in the Ocular Genomics Institute (OGI) at Mass. Eye and Ear reported a complete catalog of the genes expressed in the retina." Read more.

Virtual Gaming Environment Helping the Blind

“JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) has published a new video article by Dr. Lotfi Merabet showing how researchers in the Department of Ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Harvard Medical School have developed a virtual gaming environment to help blind individuals improve navigation skills and develop a cognitive spatial map of unfamiliar buildings and public locations.” That’s a post from Medical News Today. Read more.

How Retinitis Pigmentosa Kills Cone Photoreceptor Cells

"Research conducted at the Angiogenesis Laboratory at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, has for the first time, identified the mode of death of cone photoreceptor cells in an animal model of retinitis pigmentosa (RP)," according to a Medical News Today post. "This groundbreaking study, led by Demetrios G. Vavvas, M.D., Ph.D., and including Joan W. Miller, M.D., Mass. Eye and Ear/Mass General Hospital Chief of Ophthalmology and Chair of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, has further identified the receptor interacting protein (RIP) kinase pathway as a potential target for developing treatment for vision loss in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition." Read more.

Gene for Leber congenital Amaurosis Isolated

"Researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Loyola University Chicago Health Sciences Division and their collaborators have isolated an elusive human gene that causes a common form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a relatively rare but devastating form of early-onset blindness. The new LCA gene is called NMNAT1," according to Midwest Lens. "Finding the specific gene mutated in patients with LCA is the first step towards developing sight-saving gene therapy." Read more.

Scientists Isolate LCA Gene

"Researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Loyola University Chicago Health Sciences Division and their collaborators have isolated an elusive human gene that causes a common form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a relatively rare but devastating form of early-onset blindness," notes Medical News Today. "The new LCA gene is called NMNAT1. Finding the specific gene mutated in patients with LCA is the first step towards developing sight-saving gene therapy." Read more.