StemCell Therapy

NewsHealthGold 'nanobars' absorb heat of near-infrared light helping to repair damaged retina cells

Thursday, 4th June 2020, 7:00 pm

They are hopeful that their technique could be available on the health service within a decade although they caution that much more work is needed to determine the process is safe and effective first.

Experiments on mice showed the new technique effectively restored sight in mice with macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.

It will now be tested on humans in a huge clinical trial.

Golden Eye

We are very excited indeed by our findings, said Daniel Hillier, of the German Primate Center in Gttingen.

"We believe that near-infrared stimulation is an important step towards providing useful vision to blind patients so that they can regain their ability to read or see faces", said Dr Hillier.

The technique involves implanting billions of gold miniscule nanobars into the retina. These capture near-infrared light rays, absorbing their heat and slowly releasing it into the eye.

The heat makes the damaged photoreceptors vibrate and that movement helps them bind with functional genes delivered to the retina at the same time through a separate injection - and sight is restored.

Hope for blind people

"We want to give hope to blind people with these findings and will further intensify our research activities in this area. We have also demonstrated this method in cultured human retinas [in the lab], so the next step is clinical trials, said Dr Hillier.

The good thing is that the core component [the delivery system for the functional genes] is already approved for clinical use. Therefore I expect the human trials to be relatively straightforward, he said.

Macular degeneration is one of the major reasons for visual impairment, with nearly 200 million people affected worldwide. Photoreceptors in the retina are responsible for capturing the light. Diseased photoreceptors lose their sensitivity to light, which can lead to impaired vision or even complete blindness.

The study is published in the journal Science.

Original post:
How billions of tiny gold flecks could help restore vision and treat blindness - inews

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