The primary focus of Dr. José-Alain Sahel's laboratory and clinical investigations is to understand the mechanisms associated with retinal degeneration to develop vision restoration therapies. He conducts research on vision restoration focusing on cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying retinal degeneration, and development of treatments for currently untreatable retinal diseases.
Founded by Dr. Leah Byrne, Dr. José-Alain Sahel, and Dr. Paul Sieving, Avista Therapeutics is a Pittsburgh-based gene therapy company that develops innovative gene therapies for retinal diseases, including rare ophthalmic conditions that have a profound impact on quality of life. Avista leverages their computationally guided scAAVengr platform to generate and validate a toolkit of proprietary AAV vectors. Their quantitative, in vivo-based approach and clinical ophthalmology expertise allow Avista to rapidly translate new gene therapies to the clinic.
Dr. Joseph N. Martel's research and clinical activities are focused on investigating and treating patients with vision-threatening vitreoretinal diseases with specific interest and expertise in vision restoration therapies, retinal prosthetic devices, and robotic-assisted vitreoretinal surgery.
Dr. Boris Rosin's research is focused on studying the visual signal processing in the CNS of various animal models of IRDs. His laboratory collaborates with many other laboratories at the Vision Institute, providing functional assessment of visual function and functional vision in animal models visual disorders.