Scientists Restore Blind Man’s Sight In Ground Breaking Study
SCIENTISTS RESTORE BLIND MAN’S SIGHT – For the first time in history, a group of scientists partially restored the sight of a blind man.
Blindness is one of the ailments that people thought would always be permanent. But, thanks to new technology and developments in cell research, science is now closer to curing blindness.
The technique used to do this is called optogenetics. With this, the researchers altered the cells of the patient to produce more light-sensitive proteins. According to an article from Inquirer, there are cases of blindness called “inherited photoreceptor disease”.
Patients who have this unfortunately have degenerative light-sensing cells in their retina. As such, the proteins used to deliver visual signals to the brain via the optic nerves progressively gets worse.
However, the study wasn’t just recently done. In fact, it was 40 years ago since scientists in the Europe and the US recruited a man with inherited photoreceptor diseases and began treating him with optogenetic methods.
This required injections into his eye as well as several months of stimulation with light emitting goggles, which converted images of the visual world into light pulses projected into the retina in real time.
They were able to restore partial sight for the 58-year-old patient in a clinical first, allowing him to recognize, count, locate, and touch different objects laid out on a table in front of him. Still, despite the groundbreaking study, it would take time until the method can be given to other patients.
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