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Drs. Donald Zack and Valentin Sluch spent 30 anxious days waiting for their experiment to yield results. They were eager to see if the retinal ganglion cells growing in their lab would turn red, indicating that they'd successfully edited the cells' DNA. Turning the eye cells red would allow them to be sorted from other cells and potentially provide the key to research that one day could lead to a cure for blindness caused by glaucoma or multiple sclerosis.
"I was checking every day," Sluch said. "When I first saw red cells in the cultures, I was really excited and I ran to get a colleague to tell them that it worked."
The breakthrough of growing eye cells in a lab, developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers, will also allow them to better understand the diseases and develop better drug therapies. Hopkins is already testing drug therapies through a five-year partnership with German pharmaceutical company Bayer that began earlier this year. Existing drug therapies work by reducing the pressure in the eye, which slows the progression of blindness.
Up to half of the 2.3 million people worldwide with multiple sclerosis, or MS, develop optic neuritis, a condition that can lead to partial or total blindness. MS affects nerve fibers and disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body.
Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/b...220-story.html
Drs. Donald Zack and Valentin Sluch spent 30 anxious days waiting for their experiment to yield results. They were eager to see if the retinal ganglion cells growing in their lab would turn red, indicating that they'd successfully edited the cells' DNA. Turning the eye cells red would allow them to be sorted from other cells and potentially provide the key to research that one day could lead to a cure for blindness caused by glaucoma or multiple sclerosis.
"I was checking every day," Sluch said. "When I first saw red cells in the cultures, I was really excited and I ran to get a colleague to tell them that it worked."
The breakthrough of growing eye cells in a lab, developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers, will also allow them to better understand the diseases and develop better drug therapies. Hopkins is already testing drug therapies through a five-year partnership with German pharmaceutical company Bayer that began earlier this year. Existing drug therapies work by reducing the pressure in the eye, which slows the progression of blindness.
Up to half of the 2.3 million people worldwide with multiple sclerosis, or MS, develop optic neuritis, a condition that can lead to partial or total blindness. MS affects nerve fibers and disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body.
Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/b...220-story.html
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