As we become older, our eyes become more prone to vision problems. However, a novel gene therapy that is currently undergoing major development has demonstrated promise in reversing vision loss in primates. This new study establishes the foundation for the future development of anti-aging therapies for the human eye.
The research was led by Life Biosciences biotech business and Harvard Medical School. The team’s aim is to develop a possible therapy for a condition called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). This illness results in a sudden, painless loss of vision in one eye, which is caused by a poor blood supply to the optic nerve.
NAION is frequently referred to as an eye stroke, however, researchers are unsure of what causes it. Bruce Ksander, study co-leader and associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard, stated in an official press release that NAION is the most typical cause of acute optic neuropathy in adults over 50 but that there is presently no effective treatment for it.
The official statement claims that this gene treatment works by “partial epigenetic reprogramming” to restore visual function. In this medical procedure, the aged cells are partially reprogrammed to their younger state. The expression of three Yamanaka factors, Oct4, Sox2, and Klf4, collectively known as OSK, was used in this study to remodel the epigenome of older animals.
Just one day after the laser-induced injury to their eyes, the monkeys received an “intravitreal (in-eye) injection of doxycycline-inducible OSK viruses” to partially reprogram their eye cells. Ten monkeys were used in this study, six of which received the novel gene therapy for more than five weeks. The results showed how well the therapy restored visual function in primate models. Additionally, the condition of the nerve cells in their eyes improved, pointing to the restoration of eyesight. This innovative technique may open the way for the creation of new cures for eye rejuvenation and other conditions related to the eyes.
“Demonstrating rejuvenation in nonhuman primates is a major step forward in advancing cellular rejuvenation as a way of treating both common and rare diseases in the eye and potentially other tissues. What we’ve learned in NHPs has important ramifications for research on reversing aging and is likely to be highly translational to humans. This data moves us an important step closer to the first clinical trials of how cellular rejuvenation technology could treat aging-related diseases,” said Dr. Sinclair, Co-Founder of Life Bio, and co-author of the study.
