Main description:

During the last few years, an explosion of infonnation has come from human genetics and molecular and cell biological studies as to the genetic basis for a number of fonns of inherited retinal degenerations. These disorders have plagued mankind for millennia because they take from otherwise healthy individuals the precious gift of sight. The fundamental advances in recent years have identified a number of genes involved in the groups of diseases which hopefully will lead to discoveries that may, in the not too distant future, allow the prevention and possible cure of some of these blinding eye disorders. To foster a forum for discussions of studies on degenerative retinal disorders, we convened a symposium on retinal degenerations in 1984, at the VIth International Congress of Eye Research Meeting, held in Alicante, Spain. Because of the success of this meeting and the subsequent publication, we have since organized a series of biennial satellite meetings on retinal degenerations for the ISER congresses held in Nagoya, Japan (1986), San Francisco (1988) and Helsinki (1990). Each of these satellite symposium on retinal degenerations was accompanied by a published proceedings volume. This volume is the fifth in this series and contains the proceedings of the Sardinia Symposium on Retinal Degeneration held September 15-20, 1992, as a satellite meeting of the 10th International Congress of Eye Research.

Contents:

The Macula, Aging and Macular Degeneration: Lipofuscin in Aged and AMD Eyes (C.D. Dorey et al.). Retinoid Reaction Products in AgeRelated Retinal Degeneration (G.E. Eldred). Retinitis Pigmentosa and Allied Retinal Degenerations: Heterogeneity of Usher Syndrome Type I (R. Ayyagari et al.). Studies Toward the Isolation of the RP3 Gene (A.F. Roux et al.). Studies of Retinal Degeneration Using Transgenic Mice and Other Animal Models: Creating Transgenic Mouse Models of Photoreceptor Degeneration Caused by Mutations in the Rhodopsin Gene (F. Wong). Systematic Alterations in Docosahexaenoic Acid Metabolism in Inherited Retinal Degenerations (N.G. Bazan et al.). Agents Which Cause or Prevent Retinal Degeneration: Growth Factors as Possible Therapeutic Agents for Retinal Degeneration (M.M. LaVail et al.). The Effect of Naphthalene on the Retina of Rabbit (N. Orzalesi et al.). 27 additional articles. Index.