The most common hereditary retinal dystrophy in the world is Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). Over the past four years, the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, under the leadership of Dr. José -Alain Sahel, who has dedicated his career to the study and development of new treatments for hereditary retinal dystrophies, has placed Pitt at the forefront of research for RP around the world. Now, thanks in part to generous Eye & Ear Foundation donors such as Mr. Martin McGuinn, who established the Martin McGuinn Retina Research Fellowship, incredible progress is being made towards developing new

Dr. Sahel spoke about pioneering work in optogenetics, where scientists have attempted to, with success, restore the function of the cone cells in the eye that were not completely lost due to disease by utilizing light-sensitive algae. On Thursday, May 21, Department of Ophthalmology Chairman Jose-Alain Sahel, MD gave an honorary lecture (virtually) at Columbia University School of Medicine’s Edward Harkness Eye Institute. Dr. Sahel presented the twenty-third annual Ulrich Ollendorff, MD Lecture, titled ‘Gene Independent Strategies in Retinal Degeneration’ on scientific advances that he and his teams in Paris in Pittsburgh are contributing to the field. The Ulrich Ollendorff,

Led by Jeffrey Gross, PhD, the E. Ronald Salvitti Chair in Ophthalmology Research and the director of the Louis J. Fox Center for Vision Restoration, researchers are studying an unlikely creature to understand vision loss in humans: zebrafish. A major focus area for the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is the regeneration of the retinal pigment epithelium and retina. Epitheli-what? So, what is the retinal pigment epithelium? The retinal pigment epithelium, or RPE, spans the entire back of the eye and functions to maintain the health of the light-sensing photoreceptor cells of the retina;

Included below is a translated segment by Kalevi Rantanen published in Helsingin Sanomat, the largest subscription newspaper in Finland, on February 20, 2020. In the future, the blind can see light when video is sent directly to the brain. Eyes, and even the optic nerve, can be bypassed by optogenetics, where images are produced by light. Professor Stephen Macknik of New York’s Downstate University assures us that implantation will soon be done on the optic cortex, that is, directly on the brain. The Macknik team has developed a brain implant called Observ. It is based on optogenetics, which combines optics