Vision Seminar Hosts Dr. Thiran Jayasundera, an Expert in Retinal Degenerative Diseases

Dr. Thiran Jayasundera, Associate Professor at the Kellogg Eye Center at the University of Michigan was the Vision Seminar honorable speaker for the month of January. He specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of inherited retinal degenerative diseases, including Stargardt disease, retinitis pigmentosa variants, cone dystrophies and unusual retinal dystrophies.

Dr. Jayasundrea introduced the current new research and discussed some practical management tips that bring exciting hope for vision gain in some patients suffering from these blinding diseases. Dr. Jayasundrea is part of the Argus 2 research group, and has treated several patients with implantation of the new bionic retinal prosthesis. Vision Seminar attendees also discussed the new recently FDA approved gene therapy: Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), to treat patients with an inherited form of vision loss that may result in blindness.

Luxturna is the first directly administered gene therapy approved in the U.S. that targets a disease caused by mutations in a specific gene. Luxturna is approved for the treatment of patients with confirmed biallelic RPE65 mutation-associated retinal dystrophy that leads to vision loss and may cause complete blindness in certain patients. Dr. Jayasundrea discussed other ongoing gene therapy trials that aim to treat other forms of blindness.