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Published online 16 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.921
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Colour blindness corrected by gene therapy
Treated monkeys can now see in technicolour.
Researchers have used gene therapy to restore colour vision in two adult monkeys that have been unable to distinguish between red and green hues since birth — raising the hope of curing colour blindness and other visual disorders in humans.
"This is a truly amazing study," says András Komáromy, a vision researcher and veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who was not involved in the research.
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I really hope journalists don't start yaking about treating embryos with viri... but who am I kidding. It'll be all over the news. "Gene therapy for your baby? The future is here, thanks to researchers at UW..."
I think this is wonderful!
The more we know about our bodies and our world, the better.
Where can we sign up as volunteers?
Brave New World, here we come.. good.
At last, a gene therapy approach that actually works!
I found this article so encouraging in its implications for gene therapy concerning other eye diseases. I would like to think there will be similar trials in the UK.
In the abstract, the authors cite the pioneering work of Nobel Prize-laureates Wiesel and Hubel on the plasticity of ocular dominance in the visual system. Primary visual cortex consists of interdigitated domains in which neurons respond mainly to input from one eye. Hubel and Wiesel observed that the manipulation of visual input during postnatal development altered these domains. That is, the occlusion of one eye shortly after birth led to the enlargement of the other eye's domain into the deprived territory. The effect could be reversed, if the eye occlusion was reversed within a critical period. Much research ensued to uncover the underlying mechanisms.
Compared with monocular deprivation, color-blindness seems to pose a minor challenge to the visual system. In the present study, the neural circuitry necessary for color discrimination may have already been in place at the time of the intervention. Existing connections may have only needed to strengthen to attune the neurons to the novel inputs, precipitating the monkeys' correct decision. In this light, it is surprising that it took the monkeys five months to learn the new skill.
To better understand the neural mechanisms involved in the monkeys' improved color discrimination, it is crucial to find out precisely when after the intervention the photoreceptors become sensitive to new wavelengths.
Regardless, the findings of this study constitute a powerful prove of concept for the possibilities of gene therapy. In respect to plasticity, however, I wish we were more like salamanders.
Read more here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2009/07/very-plastic-axolotl.html
it is an interestingly new information
sureshbabu
I think this is very interesting.
One wonders if the same process could be used to transplant colour genes that give infra red vision to some animals, into the human eye, and what such "colours" would appear like.
I think that this way to monkey is not suit for people.
It is interesting to note that gene therapy works for red-green color blindness in monkeys without any side effects. To start with, Similar trials may be carried out on humans to cure their red-green color blindness and slowly with more vigor to other diseases affecting humans.
It's encouraging and a good start. New therapies is supposed to be risky. We have to face that risk if we want to be better.