Posts

Blind Patient Recovers Partial Vision with Optogenetics

After receiving an intraocular injection of the gene for a light-sensitive protein, a 58-year-old man diagnosed with the neurodegenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa was able to locate objects on a table using engineered goggles. S ince its early days in the mid-2000s, optogenetics, with its potential to activate neurons with light, emerged as a promising technique for restoring vision in blind patients. P atients who were blind or nearly blind from retinitis pigmentosa could detect light and motion following treatment.  The 58-year-old man described in the paper was the first patient in a clinical trial—partially funded by GenSight Biologics—designed to assess the safety and, secondarily, the efficacy of the therapy. Forty years before enrolling in the trial, he had been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare, genetic disease that results in the degeneration of the photoreceptor cells in the retina, leading to blindness. To compensate for the loss of these photosensitiv...

How To conduct Clinical Trials

Clinical trials or clinical research studies, to tests the potential treatments in human volunteers to see whether they should be approved for wider use in the population. In the examine a treatment could be a medicine, medical device, or biological or gene therapy. Potential treatments, however, must be studied in laboratory animals first to control potential toxicity before they can be tested on anyone or patients. Treatments having acceptable safety profiles most promises are then moved into clinical trials. Although the word new may imply betterment, it is not known whether the potential medical treatment offers to patients until clinical research on that treatment is complete. Clinical trials are an integral part of new product discovery and trials before a new product can be brought to the market. The organization is committed to protecting the participants of clinical trials, as well as providing reliable information to those interested in participating. Recently, unethical beha...

What Is a Protocol?

  A protocol is an action or research plan in a clinical trial. It explains what will be done in the trial, how it will be done, and why each step in the trial is necessary. Clinical trials use volunteers, or participants, to take part in each study and to follow the protocols. Sometimes the trial requires certain specifications to be met, such as only males or only females, or those already affected by certain diseases or ailments. Other times, the studies require healthy individuals. The protocol is designed to answer specific questions and safeguard the health of the participants in a clinical trial. Followings are the protocol for Clinical Research and Clinical Trials- Purpose of the study Number of participants Length of the study Eligibility criteria Schedule of tests, procedures, drugs, and/or dosages Information to be collected