I Can See Again
There is very little more debilitating than blindness. I should know. While I do not have retinitis pigmentosa like this gentleman, I do have cataracts. Mine are correctable with surgery while this is a non-surgical intervention. Thank God for modern medicine.
“He was treated with optogenetics - a field new to medicine, but one that has long been a staple of fundamental neuroscience.
It uses light to precisely control the activity of brain cells and was used by the scientists to restore the ability of one of his eyes to detect light.
The technique is based on proteins produced in algae, called channelrhodopsins, which change their behaviour in response to light. The microbes use them to move towards the light.
The first step in the treatment was gene therapy. The genetic instructions for making the rhodopsins were taken from algae and given to cells in the deep surviving layers of the retina at the back of his eye.
Now when they were hit with light they would send an electrical signal to the brain.”