RetGen

About five years ago, when Eckert was still coming to terms with his loss of sight, he was cleaning out a drawer at his Sacramento home and found a camera with infrared settings. He thought about how invisible wavelengths might influence a blind person trying to use the camera. A lightbulb came on in his head, and it made him smile.
'Blind Photographer is a Man of Vision,' San Francisco Chronicle, 27 February 2005.

In two clinical trials at 117 sites in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and South America, doctors found that people treated with the drug early in their illness lost less vision over a one-year period than those who went untreated.
'Rays of hope for macular degeneration' (LA Times, 7 February 2005).

Using mouse cells, the researchers found that melanopsin could be used to make neurones light responsive. They found that as well as being sensitive to blue light, melanopsin uses light at different wavelengths to regenerate itself. In some forms of hereditary blindness photoreceptors are lost entirely, but the retinal ganglion cells, the cells which signal to the brain, remain intact. The researchers believe that by activating the melanopsin, these cells may gain the ability to sense and respond to light.
'Researchers discover way to make cells in the eye sensitive to light' (Imperial College Press Release at EurekAlert January 2005).