Usher Syndrome News and Research RSS Feed - Usher Syndrome News and Research

Usher syndrome is the most common condition that affects both hearing and vision. A syndrome is a disease or disorder that has more than one feature or symptom. The major symptoms of Usher syndrome are hearing loss and an eye disorder called retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. RP causes night-blindness and a loss of peripheral vision (side vision) through the progressive degeneration of the retina. The retina is a light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye and is crucial for vision. As RP progresses, the field of vision narrows—a condition known as “tunnel vision”—until only central vision (the ability to see straight ahead) remains. Many people with Usher syndrome also have severe balance problems.

There are three clinical types of Usher syndrome: type 1, type 2, and type 3. In the United States, types 1 and 2 are the most common types. Together, they account for approximately 90 to 95 percent of all cases of children who have Usher syndrome.
Scientists evaluate two different strategies to treat Usher syndrome

Scientists evaluate two different strategies to treat Usher syndrome

After years of basic research, scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) are increasingly able to understand the mechanisms underlying the human Usher syndrome and are coming ever closer to finding a successful treatment approach. The scientists in the Usher research group of Professor Dr. Uwe Wolfrum are evaluating two different strategies. These involve either the repair of mutated genes or the deactivation of the genetic defects using agents. [More]
CIB2 gene responsible for progression and severity of Usher syndrome

CIB2 gene responsible for progression and severity of Usher syndrome

Usher syndrome is a hereditary disease in which affected individuals lose both hearing and vision. The impact of Usher syndrome can be devastating. In the United States, approximately six in every 100,000 babies born have Usher syndrome. [More]
CIB2 genetic mutation responsible for deafness associated with Usher syndrome type 1

CIB2 genetic mutation responsible for deafness associated with Usher syndrome type 1

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have found a new genetic mutation responsible for deafness and hearing loss associated with Usher syndrome type 1. [More]
Planarian flatworms now a model system for studying eye development and eye diseases

Planarian flatworms now a model system for studying eye development and eye diseases

Planarian flatworms have come under intense study for their renowned ability to regenerate any missing body part, even as adults. But now they may take on a starring role as a model system for studying eye development and eye diseases in vertebrates, including humans. [More]
Foundation Fighting Blindness grants US$125,000 to Oxford BioMedica for UshStat Phase I/IIa trial

Foundation Fighting Blindness grants US$125,000 to Oxford BioMedica for UshStat Phase I/IIa trial

Oxford BioMedica plc, the leading gene-based biopharmaceutical company, today announces that the US non-profit organisation, the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB), has granted an award of US$125,000 to the Company via its translational research arm, the Foundation Fighting Blindness Clinical Research Institute (FFBCRI) formerly known as the National Neurovision Research Institute (NNRI). [More]
Study details development of first mouse model for Usher syndrome III

Study details development of first mouse model for Usher syndrome III

A new study published in the July 11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience details the development of the first mouse model engineered to carry the most common mutation in Usher syndrome III causative gene (Clarin-1) in North America. [More]
Optogenetic Therapies for Vision workshop to be held on June 1

Optogenetic Therapies for Vision workshop to be held on June 1

The Foundation Fighting Blindness and Massachusetts Eye and Ear will host the Optogenetic Therapies for Vision workshop on Friday, June 1, from 8 a.m.-6 p.m., in Boston. [More]

Two scientists receive The Brain Prize 2012 for pioneering work on hearing and deafness

The Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation announced today that The Brain Prize 2012 is jointly awarded to Christine Petit and Karen Steel. [More]

Mayo Clinic, Oxford BioMedica collaborate to develop gene therapy for glaucoma

Oxford BioMedica plc, the leading gene-based biopharmaceutical company, today announces that it has entered into a research and development collaboration with Mayo Clinic, Rochester (USA) to develop a novel gene therapy for the treatment of chronic glaucoma. [More]

FDA approves Oxford BioMedica's UshStat IND to treat Usher syndrome type 1B

Oxford BioMedica plc, the leading gene-based biopharmaceutical company, today announces that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved its Investigational New Drug application for the Phase I/IIa clinical development of UshStat, a novel gene-based treatment for Usher syndrome type 1B. [More]
AGTC receives FFB grant to evaluate gene therapy treatment for X-linked Retinoschisis

AGTC receives FFB grant to evaluate gene therapy treatment for X-linked Retinoschisis

Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation, a privately-held, clinical stage biotechnology company developing novel systems to deliver human therapeutics, announces that it has received a grant of $1.5 million from the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund a pre-clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of a gene therapy treatment for X-linked Retinoschisis (XLRS), a genetic eye disease affecting over 35,000 patients in the US and Europe. [More]

New role for harmonin protein in Usher syndrome

University of Iowa scientists have discovered a new role for a protein that is mutated in Usher syndrome, one of the most common forms of deaf-blindness in humans. The findings, which were published Aug. 8 in Nature Neuroscience, may help explain why this mutation causes the most severe form of the condition. [More]

Small molecule treatment holds promise for Usher syndrome

New treatment approach shall soon be ready for use in Usher syndrome patients / Publication in "Human Gene Therapy". [More]
Oxford BioMedica reports RetinoStat progress in Phase I study against wet AMD

Oxford BioMedica reports RetinoStat progress in Phase I study against wet AMD

Oxford BioMedica plc, a leading gene therapy company, today announces that the first dose level of RetinoStat is safe and well-tolerated at one month following treatment. [More]
Mary Ann Liebert's peer-reviewed journal highlights latest developments in ocular gene therapy

Mary Ann Liebert's peer-reviewed journal highlights latest developments in ocular gene therapy

Disorders of the eye are excellent targets for gene therapy because the ocular environment is readily accessible, relatively easy to monitor, and sequestered from the rest of the body. [More]

OtoSCOPE method offers single-run genetic testing for hearing loss

Pinpointing the exact genetic cause of inherited deafness has always involved sequencing one gene at a time, a process that can take up to a year and cost roughly $1,000 per gene. It would cost around $75,000 to test all known deafness causing genes using this approach. Now University of Iowa researchers working with colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine have developed a test that can screen all of the genes known to cause deafness in a single run, in one to three months and for about $2,000. [More]

Dr. Hastings receives grant for Spinal Muscular Atrophy research

Michelle Hastings, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, in the Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, has been awarded a five-year $1.68 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support her research aimed at investigating treatments for the fatal children's disease, Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). [More]

Research on genetic mutations could lead to accurate diagnosis of USH, says scientist

Usher syndrome, an inherited condition involving both hearing and vision loss, is not a simply recessively inherited disease, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Saturday). Dr. Hanno Bolz, Associate Medical Director of the Bioscientia Centre for Human Genetics, Ingelheim, Germany, and active in teaching and research at the University Hospital of Cologne, will say that his team's research challenges the traditional view that USH was inherited as a single gene disorder, and shows that it may result from at least two different genetic mutations. [More]

Acucela to present data on ACU-4429 oral visual cycle modulator for dry AMD at Retina International meeting

Acucela, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing new treatments for blinding eye diseases, announced today that Ryo Kubota, M.D., Ph.D., Acucela's chairman, president and chief executive officer, has been invited to participate in Retina International's annual Scientific & Medical Advisory Board meeting being held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on May 3, 2010. [More]
NYU professor conducts genetic screening at academic campuses in Boston

NYU professor conducts genetic screening at academic campuses in Boston

Dr. Harry Ostrer, professor of pediatrics, pathology and medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center will be conducting genetic screening at four college campuses in Boston on February 1st and 2nd. Individuals interested in being screened should sign- up online at www.med.nyu.edu/genetics. [More]