Whether genetic in origin or linked to aging, retinal diseases are responsible for many cases of severe disability in "developed" countries. However, an era of diagnostic and therapeutic progress is opening up that could reduce their impact.
Building on decades of fundamental research in neuroscience, genomics, optics, physics, optoelectronics, robotics and mathematics, these innovations, involving complementary skills, provide the tools and concepts for a medicine that is both more technological and more individualized.
Once their safety and efficacy have been validated, gene and cell therapy, visual prostheses or optogenetics, for example, will be targeted after genetic and phenotypic analysis using morpho-functional exploration techniques of the remaining tissue with cellular resolution. At the end of these complex analyses, the patient will be able to base his or her difficult choice on a personal dialogue.
A clinician (Quinze-Vingts, Rothschild Foundation), teacher (UPMC, UCL) and researcher, member of the Académie des Sciences, José-Alain Sahel founded and directs the Institut de la Vision (Sorbonne Universités- Inserm-CNRS), where 250 researchers explore vision, its pathologies and new therapies.