Dr. Volker Busskamp, group leader for „Engineering human neuronal circuits“ at the DFG-Research Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden – Cluster of Excellence at the TU Dresden (CRTD) has received the Young Investigator Award of the „European Society of Gene & Cell Therapy“. This prize acknowledges his research carried out in Botond Roska’s laboratory at the „Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research“ at the University of Basel (Switzerland) for maintaining light sensitivity in photoreceptors of the retina. This award is endowed with 1,000 Euros as announced at the award ceremony in The Hague (The Netherlands) October 26th, 2014.

Mammalian vision depends on two types of light-sensitive cells (photoreceptors): rods and cones. Rod photoreceptors work in dim light conditions whereas cone photoreceptors mediate daylight and color vision. In several hereditary eye diseases leading to blindness such as Retinitis Pigmentosa, rod photoreceptors degenerate. In the course of the disease, the cone photoreceptors lose their light-sensitive “antennas” for so far unknown reasons, even though they are not primarily affected by the respective mutations. In the past years, therapeutic approaches using optogenetics have led to the reactivation of cones, requiring very strong light stimuli. However, in order to enable vision at room light conditions, a new research approach to maintain or to regenerate the cone ”antennas” was desirable that would also be beneficial for other cone related diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.

Volker Busskamp and his team discovered two small RNA sequences in mice, so-called microRNAs playing a key role in maintaining the light-sensitive antennas of photoreceptors. With this knowledge he was able to maintain the structure of light-sensitive photoreceptors in blind mice. Furthermore these microRNAs induced light-sensitive antennas in photoreceptors of stem cell-derived retinas.

These results may lead to novel approaches to study and treat blindness related diseases.,” says Volker Busskamp. “I am very happy being awarded with this prestigious prize for young scientists”. The 33 year old biotechnologist works at the CRTD since September 2014 and is funded by a “Freigeist-Fellowship” of the Volkswagen Foundation. He combines bioengineering techniques and stem cell research in order to create artificial functional human neuronal circuits to study neurodegenerative diseases. 

Information for Journalists:
Birte Urban-Eicheler
Press Officer CRTD/DFG-Research Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden – Cluster of Excellence at the TU Dresden
Phone: +49 (0)351 458-82065
Fax: +49 (0)351 458-82059

http://www.crt-dresden.de