Alleyn's Medical Society: Professor Bainbridge on Promoting Sight by Regenerative Medicine

Ophthalmology, the study of the eye, is a discipline leading the frontier in regenerative medicine. Indeed the eye is one of only a few organs on the crest of a wave of revolutionary stem cell and gene therapy research. The progress seen over the past few years has been phenomenal with recent developments in a branch of new cell-based therapies that promote healing by inserting new cells into diseased tissue or reactivating stem cells that proliferated during the eye’s development.

Professor James Bainbridge is Chair of Retinal Studies at UCL and worked on the first gene therapy for inherited blindness ever in 2007. Professor Bainbridge has been at the very epi-centre of developments within Opthamology, in 2011 he worked alongside the American bio-tech company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) to apply regenerative medicine to 12 patients with Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy- which causes progressive loss of sight. The trial has been seen as a ‘milestone’ in working towards curing forms of inherited blindness using regenerative medicine.

Professor Bainbridge first gave Alleyn’s Medical Society an overview of the ‘facts and figures’ when it comes to Ophthalmology: 39million people in the world are blind, blindness has been rated the greatest medical fear even over cancer and other chronic diseases and ophthalmology surprisingly represents 20% of surgeries in America. What at first may appear to be a minor aspect of medicine in actual fact makes up quite a large proportion of our healthcare service. Even so whilst Professor Bainbridge’s research centres around Macular Dystrophy he discussed how on a day to day basis the majority of cases he comes into contact with are for cataracts- clouding of the lens inside the eye which leads to a decrease in vision. Cataract surgery is only done under local anaesthetic rather than general meaning most surgeries are done whilst the patient is awake- he stated that whilst that may seem a little daunting in reality most patients aren’t frightened by the scalpel coming towards them and during surgery can have an intense and abstract viewpoint due to the work done on the back of their retina.

Professor Bainbridge went on to explain that whilst the recent develop he’s seen and been a part of are amazing from a scientific perspective the greatest reward is the fulfilment of patients and families he’s seen as the work has been successful- after it all Medicine is about people not just science.
 
-Izzie