Degenerative retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) affect millions of people around the world and lead to irreversible vision loss if left untreated. A number of therapeutic strategies have been developed over the years to treat these diseases or restore vision to already blind patients. In this Review, we describe the development and translational application of light-sensitive chemical photoswitches to restore visual function to the blind retina and compare the translational potential of photoswitches with other vision-restoring therapies. This therapeutic strategy is enabled by an efficient fusion of chemical synthesis, chemical biology, and molecular biology and is broadly applicable to other biological systems. We hope this Review will be of interest to chemists as well as neuroscientists and clinicians.

中文翻译：

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使用化学光电开关将视力恢复到盲人

变性性视网膜疾病，例如色素性视网膜炎（RP）和与年龄有关的黄斑变性（AMD），影响着全球数百万人，如果不加以治疗，则会导致不可逆的视力丧失。多年来，已经开发出许多治疗策略来治疗这些疾病或恢复已经失明的患者的视力。在这篇综述中，我们描述了光敏化学光开关的开发和翻译应用，以恢复盲人视网膜的视觉功能，并比较光开关与其他视觉恢复疗法的翻译潜力。这种治疗策略是通过化学合成，化学生物学和分子生物学的有效融合而实现的，并且广泛适用于其他生物学系统。