The prize recognizes Bence György’s work on high-efficiency base editing in the retina, published in Nature Medicine. The study advances a promising therapeutic approach for Stargardt disease, an inherited form of retinal degeneration that can lead to severe central vision loss.

Using base editing, the team demonstrated a highly efficient and precise way to correct disease-causing mutations in retinal cells. This technology is designed to change individual DNA letters without creating double-strand breaks. The study combines advanced AAV vector engineering, human retinal explants, retinal organoids and other translational disease models.

The results show therapeutically relevant levels of editing in human retinal tissue, with no detectable off-target effects in the reported analyses. This marks an important step toward the development of durable genetic therapies for inherited retinal degenerative diseases, many of which still have no approved treatment options.

The award highlights both the scientific excellence and the translational ambition of Bence György’s work at IOB: developing precise molecular therapies that can move from advanced laboratory models toward future clinical application for people living with blindness.