Making Blind Cells See
From: UC Berkeley News - 10/31/2006
By: Robert Sanders

The newly created UC Berkeley/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Nanomedicine Development Center is developing a method to put light-
sensitive switches in the body's cells that can be flipped on and off.
Optical switches like these could trigger a chemical reaction, activate a
drug, initiate a muscle contraction, or stimulate a nerve cell. 

The Center is equipping cells of the retina with the photoswitches, making
blind nerve cells see, restoring light sensitivity in people with macular
degeneration. The method controls biological nanomolecules (proteins) with
light, and involves altering an ion channel commonly found in nerve cells so
that the channel turns the cell on when it is zapped by green light, and
turns it off when hit with ultraviolet light. 

The researchers believe that if they can control the nanomolecules with
light, they can develop treatments for eye, skin, and blood diseases that can
be activated by light. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/10/31_photoswitch.shtml

Photoswitches could restore sight to blind retinas
http://nanotechnologytoday.blogspot.com/2006/11/photoswitches-could-restore-sight-to.html
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2006/11/equipping_blind.html

Links:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
http://www.lbl.gov/

Ehud Y. Isacoff
http://pbd.lbl.gov/about/people/isacoff.htm

