Gene therapy and bioengineering for retinal diseases: what is the future?

Sight restoration after retinal degeneration still represents an unmet goal. Since therapeutic strategies increasingly require interdisciplinary competencies, photoreceptor degeneration is attracting several research areas, including: life science, material science, engineering, and clinical science. Gene therapy, optogenetics, and neural prostheses are just few examples of research fields benefiting from multidisciplinary research. This talk will provide a broad description of the current approaches applied to the restoration of sight from the bio- and neuro-engineering point of view, with particular emphasis on gene correction and therapy. Moreover, I will highlight future directions involving engineering science in this exciting path towards sight restoration.