Understanding Retinal Regeneration
Researchers continue to decipher the biomechanisms of retinal regeneration that take place throughout life, but fade in old age to cause blindness: "Rod cells make up the majority of photoreceptors in the human eye ... Rod cells contain tiny organelles called the 'outer segment,' which contain about 1,000 flattened discs containing rhodopsin - a visual pigment that absorbs light. Each day, our eyes shed the top 10 percent of these discs, but until now, no one really knew how the retina generated new discs. We believe we have solved that riddle ... There are currently more than 100 retinal eye diseases in human populations, and problems with rhodopsin trafficking or outer segment development are thought to play a role in many of these potentially blinding conditions. In fact, we got interested in this type of research because we knew that breakdowns in rhodopsin trafficking were crucial to a common eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa." Identifying mechanisms is very empowering in this age of biotechnology - it can lead quickly to targeted, effective therapies.
Link: http://news.med.cornell.edu/wcmc/wcmc_2007/09_10c_07.shtml