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Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blind Monkeys
SpuriousLogic writes "After receiving injections of genes that produce color-detecting proteins, two color-blind monkeys have seen red and green for the first time. Except in its extreme forms, color blindness isn't a debilitating condition, but it's a convenient stand-in for other types of blindness that might be treated with gene therapy. The monkey success raises the possibility of reversing those diseases, in a manner that most scientists considered impossible. 'We said it was possible to give an adult monkey with a model of human red-green color blindness the retina of a person with normal color vision. Every single person I talked to said, absolutely not,' said study co-author Jay Neitz, a University of Washington ophthalmologist. 'And almost every unsolved vision defect out there has this component in one way or another, where the ability to translate light into a gene signal is involved.' The full-spectrum supplementation of the squirrel monkeys' sight, described Wednesday in Nature, comes just less than a year after researchers used gene therapy to restore light perception in people afflicted by Leber Congenital Amaurosis, a rare and untreatable form of blindness."
Why not go infra-red? From the article..
Williams, however, was quicker to speculate. âoeUltimately we might be able to do all kinds of interesting manipulations of the retina,â he said. âoeNot only might we be able to cure disease, but we might engineer eyes with remarkable capabilities. You can imagine conferring enhanced night vision in normal eyes, or engineering genes that make photopigments with spectral properties for whatever you want your eye to see.â
âoeThis study makes that kind of science fiction future a distinct possibility, as opposed to a fantasy,â continued Williams.
Aye. A story deserving of being /.
They wouldn't let me join the army because I am "color blind". No-one mentioned this to me when I was in Cadets, and it's not like the topic didn't come up. I remember one day we all lined up in front of a field:
Instructor: Right. Everyone, listen up. Today we are doing a sweep search exercise. Hidden in this field are 6 soldiers, all highly trained in the skill of camouflage. You will form a single line, one arm length seperation, and walk this field. Be attentive, they may be right in front of them and you won't see them.
[I raise my hand]
Instructor: Yes cadet, what is it?
Me: Do you mean [pointing] that guy, that guy, that guy, that guy, that guy, and that lady?
Instructor: [Sigh]. Ok smart-ass, you're dismissed. Everyone else, turn around while we reconfigure.
But hey, at least they won't draft me.
How we know is more important than what we know.