Genome Surgery and Gene Therapy in Retinal Disorders

The emergence of genome surgery techniques like the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) editing technology has given researchers a powerful tool for precisely introducing targeted changes within the genome. New modifications to the CRISPR-Cas system have been made since its recent discovery, such as high-fidelity Cas9 variants to reduce off-target effects and transcriptional activation/silencing with CRISPRa/CRISPRi. The applications of CRISPR-Cas and gene therapy in ophthalmic diseases have been necessary and fruitful, especially given the impact of blinding diseases on society and the large number of monogenic disorders of the eye. This review discusses the impact that CRISPR-Cas has had on furthering our understanding of disease mechanisms and potential therapies for inherited eye diseases. Furthermore, we explore a brief overview of recent and ongoing gene therapy clinical trials in retinal diseases, and conclude with the implications of genome surgery on the outlook of future therapeutic interventions.