Optogenetics
In a blinding disease called Retinitis pigmentosa, the goal was to repair non-functional cone photoreceptors using optogenetics, specifically by expressing microbial Halorhodopsins, to restore visual function in mice. We further translated this approach to postmortem human retinas (Busskamp et al. 2010), which forms the basis for on-going clinical trials. We are currently testing advanced optogenetic tools for photoreceptor reactivation.
