“I See,” Said the Color Blind Man

Do you remember your friend who couldn't hack it at "Stop and Go," claiming he didn't realize there was a difference between a red light and green light?  Was it just poor sportsmanship, or was it color blindness?

At the University of Washington, recent studies of color blindness have revealed the potential for curing this genetic deficiency that affects less than a tenth of the population, men more than women.  As you may remember from biology class, vision is brought to you by rods and cones in the retina: the first make sight possible in lower light, and the second allow us to discern tones and colors in brighter light. In adult squirrel monkeys, researchers have applied gene therapy (i.e. the transplanting of working genes) to the retinas and found that full hue perception can be given to these animals born with red-green color blindness. Just as Dorothy once awoke to the vivid world of Munchkin Land, sufferers of color blindness may be able to view their world in Technicolor vision. What's strange is it seems like a noble goal to cure color blindness medically—but not socially. Or maybe not? Seeing colors is only half the battle, I guess.

References:                                                                               

Dolgin, Elie. Colour blindness corrected by gene therapy. Nature News. 16 September 2009.

Young, Ed. Gene therapy gives full colour vision to colour-blind monkeys.  Science Blogs: Not Exactly Rocket Science. 16 September 2009.