As gene editing therapies for macular degeneration and other visual disorders work their way into clinical trials, the University of Wisconsin–Madison is on the forefront of research into making sure they are safe and effective.
Nine years ago, David Gamm, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the McPherson Eye Research Institute (MERI) and associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, grew the first early retinal structures from human induced pluripotent stem cells in the lab, reporting in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Today, a team of scientists in the School of Medicine and Public Health and the College of Engineering led by Dr. Krishanu Saha, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), join the National Institutes of Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortiumafter receiving a major collaborative award (U01). The investigators aim to develop quality control methods for improving genome editing therapies in the eye. Granted through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the award builds up on a Round Five UW2020 award to the UW-Madison Graduate School.
Read more here: https://wid.wisc.edu/scientists-seek-to-improve-quality-control-for-genome-editing-therapies-in-the-eye/