Anyone who might be interested in participating in the trial should contact:

Mr Markus Groppe, Academic Clinical Lecturer in Ophthalmology at the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology, or via email at: OEHResearch @ gmail.com

Further details for the Choroideraemia Trial

Recruitment of patients for the Oxford Eye Hospital Choroideraemia study has started. The goal of the project is to assess the safety of a gene-therapy approach for choroideraemia.

 Choroideraemia is a progressive deterioration in vision caused by an abnormality in the choroideraemia gene. This gene is on the X-chromosome and this is why the disease affects men and women differently. Men have only have one X-chromosome and cannot compensate when it is defective. In choroideraemia the gene has an important function in the retina, which is like a camera film that lines the back of the eye. There are currently no effective treatments available for choroideraemia, but we have developed a new technique of gene therapy which we believe help to slow or even stop the degeneration. The new technique involves putting normal copies of the choroideraemia gene back into the cells of the retina to help them to function normally. This is achieved by an operation to inject the normal genes to the retina, using a modified virus to carry the gene into the cells. This study will be the first time gene therapy has been used to treat a patient with choroideraemia. Gene therapy has however been used in clinical trials to help patients with different retinal degenerations.

 For the current study, patients need to be male and aged 18 years or above. The vision needs to be good enough to at least read the top letter of a vision chart.

Patients who have previous surgery to the retina or ocular inflammatory disease (uveitis) might not be suitable. Patients need to be in good health and fit enough for surgical intervention. Patients need to be UK residents.