Blindness News and Research

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New study reveals that sick teens are more isolated than other kids

A new study reveals that sick teens are more isolated than other kids, but they do not necessarily realize it and often think their friendships are stronger than they actually are.

7 Dec 2010

Closer to restoring vision loss due to optic nerve damage

Damage to the optic nerve, connecting the eye with the brain, is a major cause of blindness. The most common culprit is glaucoma, estimated to affect more than 4 million Americans. There is currently no way to restore the lost vision, because the optic nerve, like other nerves in the mature central nervous system (CNS), cannot regenerate. Now, scientists at Children's Hospital Boston report achieving the greatest regeneration to date in the mammalian optic nerve.

4 Dec 2010

Merck plans to acquire SmartCells

Today pharmaceutical company, Merck & Co., Inc. announced it will acquire SmartCells, Inc., a private biotech developing a glucose-responsive insulin whose proof-of-concept preclinical trials were partially funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

4 Dec 2010

Scripps scientists find way to transform mature human cells into stem cells

Scripps Research Institute scientists have made a significant leap forward in the drive to find a way to safely reprogram mature human cells and turn them into stem cells, which can then change into other cell types, such as nerve, heart, and liver cells. The ability to transform fully mature adult cells such as skin cells into stem cells has potentially profound implications for treating many diseases.

3 Dec 2010

Anacor, UCSF and NYBC collaborate to discover drug therapies for river blindness

Anacor Pharmaceuticals, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Sandler Center and the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute (LFKRI) of the New York Blood Center (NYBC) today announced the establishment of a research and development collaboration to discover new drug therapies for the treatment of river blindness (onchocerciasis), a parasitic disease that is the second leading cause of infectious blindness worldwide, and is most prevalent in Africa.

1 Dec 2010

ACT files IND application to initiate Phase I/II study for Dry AMD

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. announced today that it has filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) Application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to initiate a Phase I/II multicenter study using human embryonic stem cell (hESC) derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells to treat patients with Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration (Dry AMD).

30 Nov 2010

QOI and Quantel enter co-promotion agreement for Activis PDT Lasers

QLT Inc. today announced that its wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary, QLT Ophthalmics, Inc. ("QOI"), and Quantel Medical and its distributor, Quantel USA, Inc., have entered into a co-promotion agreement for the sale of Activis PDT Lasers used to activate Visudyne® during photodynamic therapy of primarily classic lesions in wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The lasers are manufactured by Quantel Medical and sold by Quantel USA, Inc. and will be promoted by both Quantel USA, Inc. and QOI's sales force to the retina community in the United States.

29 Nov 2010

FDA grants ACT clearance for Phase I/II clinical trial of hESC derived retinal cells in patients with SMD

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the Company's Investigational New Drug (IND) application to immediately initiate a Phase I/II multicenter clinical trial using retinal cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to treat patients with Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy (SMD), one of the most common forms of juvenile macular degeneration in the world. The decision removes the clinical hold that the FDA had placed on the trial.

22 Nov 2010

Phase 3 study of VEGF Trap-Eye regimen meets primary endpoint in patients with wet AMD

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Bayer HealthCare announced that in two parallel Phase 3 studies in patients with the neovascular form of age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD), all regimens of VEGF Trap-Eye (aflibercept ophthalmic solution), including VEGF Trap-Eye dosed every two months, successfully met the primary endpoint compared to the current standard of care, ranibizumab dosed every month.

22 Nov 2010

People to get free vision rehabilitation surgeries with launch of 2010 China-Africa Brightness Action

The launching ceremony for the "2010 China-Africa Brightness Action" was held at Deer Jet's fix base operation (FBO), Beijing Capital International Airport on November 18.

20 Nov 2010

Multinational team identifies novel retinal disease gene

A multinational team effort of Regensburg's Institute of Human Genetics, Washington University in St. Louis, other partners and Genomatix elucidated a transcriptional network in photoreceptors and thereby identified a novel retinal disease gene

19 Nov 2010

Popular Science names VisionCare's Implantable Miniature Telescope for AMD 'Best of What's New' 2010

VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies, Inc., a developer of advanced visual prosthetic devices, today announced the Implantable Miniature Telescope (by Dr. Isaac Lipshitz), designed to improve vision in patients with end-stage age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is named "Best of What's New" 2010 by Popular Science magazine.

17 Nov 2010

JDRF, Amylin collaborate to support metreleptin study for type 1 diabetes

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that they entered into a research collaboration agreement to provide financial support for a clinical proof-of-concept study to investigate the effects of metreleptin, an analog of the human hormone leptin, in patients with type 1 diabetes. Researchers at The University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center will conduct the study.

17 Nov 2010

Children's Hospital pediatric immunologist collaborates with European gene therapy researchers to study WAS syndrome

A pediatric immunologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia collaborated with European gene therapy researchers who achieved marked clinical improvements in two young children with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, a very rare but often severe immunodeficiency disorder.

16 Nov 2010

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.

16 Nov 2010

Report documents increase in R&D projects on developing world diseases

Drugmakers are now working on over 100 R&D projects designed to tackle diseases of the developing world and almost 80% of them are being carried out with non-industry partners, according to a report released on Wednesday by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA).

15 Nov 2010

Carter Center, Merck take steps to prevent river blindness in Latin America

Public health officials at the 20th Inter-American Conference on Onchocerciasis in Antigua, Guatemala, confirmed that more than one-third of all Latin Americans who ran the risk of contracting river blindness (onchocerciasis), a leading cause of preventable blindness, are no longer at risk.

12 Nov 2010

Bristol-Myers Squibb announces first large-scale diabetes initiative to develop self-management program

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation today announced Together on Diabetes: Communities Uniting to Meet America's Diabetes Challenge, a 5-year, $100 million initiative to help patients living with type 2 diabetes better manage their disease beyond the doors of their doctor's office in their homes and communities and for the course of their disease.

12 Nov 2010

Recommendations for safe and effective testing of artificial pancreas systems in real-life settings

Diabetes experts at a meeting convened by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) took the next step in advancing efforts toward the development of an artificial pancreas: putting forth clinical recommendations to ensure the safe and effective testing of artificial pancreas technology in real-life situations.

11 Nov 2010

Discovery of anti-parasitic drug mechanism could lead to new treatments for filarial diseases

In a major breakthrough that comes after decades of research and nearly half a billion treatments in humans, scientists have finally unlocked how a key anti-parasitic drug kills the worms brought on by the filarial diseases river blindness and elephantitis.

11 Nov 2010

Blindness News and Research

New study reveals that sick teens are more isolated than other kids

Closer to restoring vision loss due to optic nerve damage

Merck plans to acquire SmartCells

Scripps scientists find way to transform mature human cells into stem cells

Anacor, UCSF and NYBC collaborate to discover drug therapies for river blindness

ACT files IND application to initiate Phase I/II study for Dry AMD

QOI and Quantel enter co-promotion agreement for Activis PDT Lasers

FDA grants ACT clearance for Phase I/II clinical trial of hESC derived retinal cells in patients with SMD

Phase 3 study of VEGF Trap-Eye regimen meets primary endpoint in patients with wet AMD

People to get free vision rehabilitation surgeries with launch of 2010 China-Africa Brightness Action

Multinational team identifies novel retinal disease gene

Popular Science names VisionCare's Implantable Miniature Telescope for AMD 'Best of What's New' 2010

JDRF, Amylin collaborate to support metreleptin study for type 1 diabetes

Children's Hospital pediatric immunologist collaborates with European gene therapy researchers to study WAS syndrome

OtoSCOPE method offers single-run genetic testing for hearing loss

Report documents increase in R&D projects on developing world diseases

Carter Center, Merck take steps to prevent river blindness in Latin America

Bristol-Myers Squibb announces first large-scale diabetes initiative to develop self-management program

Recommendations for safe and effective testing of artificial pancreas systems in real-life settings

Discovery of anti-parasitic drug mechanism could lead to new treatments for filarial diseases

How ELRIG Is Helping Mid-Career Scientists Navigate Leadership, Career Change and Redundancy

The role of UV-Vis in biopharma QC

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