Symposium: Opportunities, Hopes, and Challenges in Translating Visual Restoration from Mouse to Human

Eberhart Zrenner is Professor of Ophthalmology at the Center for Ophthalmology, University of Tübingen. He has made major contributions to advance basic science, clinical diagnosis and treatment in inherited retinal dystrophies, improving our understanding of disease origin as well as retinal function and dysfunction. He and his team have developed a unique electronic subretinal prosthesis with 1600 pixels, implanted in more than 70 patients and have successfully performed the first gene therapy trial in achromatopsia (CNGA3).

Dr. Cepko received her PhD degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Phillip Sharp on adenovirus capsid assembly, and remained at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Richard Mulligan, where she was involved in the development of retrovirus-mediated gene transduction. She moved to Harvard Medical School as a faculty member to join the newly formed Department of Genetics in 1985. Her laboratory studies cell fate determination in the retina, using molecular and cellular method, and is using AAV vectors to develop therapies for a wide range of retinal degenerations.

Miikka Terho has worked as a lecturer in finance and marketing in various academic institutions. He was founder and, for over 20 years, managing director of a sports management agency until 2012. Since 2008, he has participated as a patient in clinical trials at the University of Tübingen and Retina Implant AG. In his presentation he will talk about personal experiences of testing and using the retinal implant chip developed by Professor Zrenner. He will give insights on how it felt to see something after many years of blindness and eventually face the reality that the science cannot yet restore vision completely.