My goodness, I could sure use some good news. I feel like I’ve been carping on this, that, and the other thing, like, forever.
But then science and technology jumped into my world, at least a little bit, and I found something entirely encouraging.
Eyesight is such a key part of the living experience. Yes, people can still interact with their environment having lost their sight, or having never been gifted with it in the first place.
But as much as we can adapt, it would still be preferable to have sight rather than not.
And now, it’s theoretically possible to restore sight using a combination of genetics and optics, giving people afflicted with sight-loss an opportunity to experience the visual sense of the world again or even for the first time.
This new technology involves a partnership between gene therapy and light stimulation. And oddly enough, a virus.
The virus in question is known as an adenovirus, one that can usually cause symptoms resembling a cold or other respiratory ailments. But in this case, it can help.
The essential aspect behind this technique is the patient’s retinal cells and how they can be modified by injecting them with a light-sensitive protein from, well, red algae if you must know. This makes the neurons of the patient’s optic nerve more photoreceptive. That’s the genetic part.
The light stimulation comes from wearing special glasses that record the world around the patient before projecting those images onto the patient’s retina.
It’s not going to be the same as regular vision, although maybe we can get there down the road. But when you have no vision at all, then it sounds to me to represent a bit of a breakthrough.
And that, friends, I’m going to call good news.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 