Gene Therapy Restores Sight To Blind

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 3, 2010 @06:31PM from the falling-scales dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like we have found a cure for genetic blindness (clinical trial — abstract — paper [PDF] — ABC News video). This gene therapy treatment increases both cone and rod photoreceptor-based vision. These engineered viruses are implanted to do our bidding to restore vision. Clinical trials on 6 children and young people proved the therapy and didn't find any notable side effects." Any blind person, especially any adapted and competent one, who wants to gain the sense of sight would be well advised to study Oliver Sachs's classic piece "To See and Not See."

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Here is some more recent work by ZuchinniOne · 2010-05-03 19:00 · Score: 5, Informative

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/
I have a feeling this will be up for a Nobel Prize. It was seriously groundbreaking work and the entire vision science community is excited about it.