Dr. Bence György, MD, PhD

«We take promising technologies [...] that are being developed in the lab and drive them toward clinical applications.»

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Dr. Bence György, MD, PhD

Leiter Ophthalmic Translational Research Group und Head of Clinical Translation am Institut für Molekulare und Klinische Ophthalmologie Basel (IOB), DKF-Forschungsgruppenleiter seit 2024

Forschungsgebiet

Personalisierte Präzisions-Gentherapie zur Behandlung von erblich bedingter Blindheit.

Forschungsprofil

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Drei Stichworte, drei Antworten

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Translation

Basic science has given us incredible tools - from optogenetics and precision genome engineering to stem cell technology. But despite this amazing progress, translating these discoveries into actual treatments, especially in fields like ophthalmology, remains slow and inefficient. Our group works at the interface of science and medicine to change that. We take promising technologies, such as optogenetic vision restoration and precision mutation correction strategies, that are being developed in the lab and drive them toward clinical applications. To do this, we’ve built an interdisciplinary team that brings together biologists, medical doctors, data scientists, AI experts, and engineers — all focused on bridging the gap between the lab and the clinic.

Gene therapy

Gene therapy is a promising new treatment modality. Gene augmentation involves delivering a healthy copy of a gene into cells to compensate for a missing or malfunctioning one, typically using viral vectors. In contrast, gene editing aims to directly correct mutations at the DNA or RNA level. Regulatory agencies expect that a significant portion of future drug approvals will come from gene and cell therapies. But despite this potential, the field is still relatively young and faces major scientific and regulatory challenges. In our group, we apply optogenetics to reactivate remaining retinal cells in order to restore vision and precision gene editing to repair disease-causing mutations directly in the genome. We recently founded a company, RhyGaze AG (www.rhygaze.com), to bring optogenetics vision restoration to the clinic.

Clinical research

When translating new, innovative therapies to the clinic, we have to address important clinical gaps - such as the identification and stratification of candidate patients, defining treatment outcomes, and developing methods to measure success in patients. Our strategy is to initiate targeted clinical research to address these gaps with the help of Clinician Scientists. We work with the DKF to establish patient databases and to plan and run observational clinical studies. An example is the EyeConic study, which is a world-wide, multicenter study to identify candidate patients for our optogenetic vision restoration approach. The parallel molecular and clinical development in our group is designed to enable more efficient and effective translation.