Inclusion Criteria:
Exclusion Criteria:
SUBJECTS WILL NOT BE EXCLUDED BASED ON THEIR GENDER, RACE OR ETHNICITY.
Subjects who meet any of the following conditions are excluded from the clinical study:
- Unable or unwilling to meet requirements of the study.
- Participation in a clinical study with an investigational drug in the past six months.
- Pre-existing eye conditions that would preclude the planned surgery or interfere with the interpretation of study endpoints (for example, glaucoma, corneal or lenticular opacities).
- Lack of sufficient viable retinal cells as determined by non-invasive means, such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) and/or ophthalmoscopy. Specifically, if indirect ophthalmoscopy reveals less than 1 disc area of retina which is not involved by complete retinal degeneration (indicated by geographic atrophy, thinning with tapetal sheen, or confluent intraretinal pigment migration), these eyes will be excluded. In addition, in eyes where optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans of sufficient quality can be obtained, areas of retina with thickness measurements less than 100 um, or absence of neural retina, will not be targeted for delivery of AAV2-hRPE65v2.
- Complicating systemic diseases or clinically significant abnormal baseline laboratory values. Complicating systemic diseases would include those in which the disease itself, or the treatment for the disease, can alter ocular function. Examples are malignancies whose treatment could affect central nervous system function (for example, radiation treatment of the orbit; leukemia with CNS/optic nerve involvement). Also excluded would be subjects with immuno-compromising diseases, as there could be susceptibility to opportunistic infection (such as CMV retinitis). Subjects with diabetes or sickle cell disease would be excluded if they had any manifestation of advanced retinopathy (e.g. macular edema or proliferative changes). Subjects with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis could be excluded due to increased infection risk after surgery due to poor wound healing. Subjects who are positive for hepatitis B, C, and HIV will be excluded.
- Prior ocular surgery within six months.
- Known sensitivity to medications planned for use in the peri-operative period.
- Individuals of childbearing potential who are pregnant or unwilling to use effective contraception for the duration of the study.
- Any other condition that would not allow the potential subject to complete follow-up examinations during the course of the study and, in the opinion of the investigator, makes the potential subject unsuitable for the study.
- Subjects will be excluded if immunological studies show presence of neutralizing antibodies to AAV2 above 1:1000.