RetroSense Therapeutics, a privately-held, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted U.S. patent Application No. 11/036,629, entitled “Method for Augmenting Vision in Persons Suffering from Photoreceptor Cell Degeneration.” RetroSense is the exclusive licensee of this intellectual property for augmenting vision from photoreceptor cell degeneration through a license with Massachusetts General Hospital. This patent broadly covers methods for restoring or improving vision using optogenetic approaches. The allowed claims cover the use of a broad range of opsins and rhodopsins in vision restoration.

The potential of light as a non-invasive, highly-focused alternative to pain medication was made more apparent thanks to research conducted by scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital of McGill University and the McGill University Health Center.

Scientists from MIPT’s Laboratory of the Biophysics of Excitable Systems have discovered how to control the behavior of heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) using laser radiation; this study will help scientists to better understand the mechanisms of the heart and could ultimately provide a method of treating arrhythmia. The paper has been  published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Tufts University biologists using a frog model have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to prevent tumors from forming and normalize tumors after they have formed by using light to control electrical signaling among cells. The work, which appears online in Oncotarget on March 16, is the first reported use of optogenetics to specifically manipulate bioelectrical signals to both prevent and cause regression of tumors induced by oncogenes.