McGill University-Led International Team Identifies Gene Responsible for Blindness in Infants and Children

Montreal, June 4, 2007 -- A MUHC-led study identifies a gene responsible for Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA), the most common cause of congenital blindness in infants and small children. The study, partly funded by the Foundation Fighting Blindness in Canada (FFB-C), is published in today’s issue of Nature Genetics. “This discovery has the potential to fast-track a cure for this disease,” says lead investigator Dr. Robert Koenekoop, director of the McGill Ocular Genetics Centre at the MUHC. “Our main research goal is to identify all the genes responsible for congenital blindness in children and then study them so that we can then use gene therapy to rescue their vision.”