Restoring vision in night blind mice (UCL)
Channel: UCL
Date: 18/04/2012

Professor Robin Ali and his team at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology have shown that transplanting photoreceptor cells into the retina of a mouse with night blindness can restore vision in dim light. They used a water maze test to confirm that the transplanted cells were functioning almost as well as normal rod-photoreceptor cells and had formed the connections needed to transmit visual information to the brain. The research published in Nature was funded by the MRC, the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society, the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society, Alcon Research Institute and The Miller's Trust.

Further information:
Flickr images - http://flickr.com/gp/uclnews/72Uqne
Prof Ali's profile - http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioo/research/ali.htmuk
Paper in Nature: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10997 (link available only after publication)

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