Moroccan Scientists Identify Gene Linked to Rare Vision Loss Disease

SDR42E. This is the new gene discovered in Morocco, says the international journal Experimental Eye Research. A discovery made by Professor Bouhouche Ahmed, a specialist in human genetics at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Rabat and Professor Belmekki Mohammed, a specialist in ophthalmology at the Abulcasis International University of Health Sciences in Rabat (UIASS), in collaboration with the endocrinology team of the Ibn Sina University Hospital, the pediatrics department of the UIASS and the scientific research support units of the National Center for Scientific Research.

The new mutated gene is responsible for a newly identified disease. Its name: oculocutaneous genital syndrome. One of the symptoms of this rare disease is thinning of the cornea. "The discovery of this enzyme opens up new avenues of research in the discovery of a treatment, not only for this rare disease, but also for several other very common diseases related to the decline in sex hormones during aging and which concern for example dry eye, keratoconus, loss of skin elasticity, alopecia, musculoskeletal problems," the Center for Ophthalmology of the Abulcasis International University of Health Sciences (UIASS) in Rabat said in a statement.

"This discovery required two years of research after the discovery of two cases, a 4-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl from the same family," Professor Mohammed Belmekki told Le360.