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Gene Therapy Experiment Restores Sight To Dogs

Posted by timothy on from the remove-braille-from-the-hydrants dept.

supermancan writes: "Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center's Scheie Eye Institute used gene therapy to restore sight to three dogs that were born blind, and report that the process will very likely work for humans, as well. Yahoo has the story."

2 of 10 comments (clear)

  1. Well, *some* blind people, anyway... by Alik · · Score: 5

    Reread the article. It's a specific single-gene disorder with about 2,000 patients in the country. The National Federation for the Blind claims that there are about a million blind people in America. In other words, we're talking about 0.2% of blind people being cured. While that's wonderful for them, this isn't a massive breakthrough in the treatment of blindness.

    Most blindness isn't genetic. Much of it is due to cataracts and macular degeneration, which are diseases of aging. It's also caused by the complications of chronic diseases, especially diabetes (slow destruction of the vessels of the retina) and AIDS (death of retinal neurons due to cytomegalovirus). All of these except AIDS are not really understood, but are definitely not single-gene disorders that are likely to be amenable to gene therapy. My money's still on the retinal and cortical implant folks.

  2. After all this time... by Vuarnet · · Score: 5

    ...using dogs for helping blind people, it's nice to pay them back their favors.


    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

    --
    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
    Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.