Out of our 5 senses, I would argue that the most important one is the sense of sight. Most of us take it for granted everyday, that when we wake up, we just expect to see everything that we love and hate as soon as our eyes open. However, for many people in the world, blindness is something that causes major inconvenience in their lives, and it restricts them to do activities that their peers may partake in. My name is Michael Tung, your host for this month’s 90SS, and this month we are going to be talking about optogenetics, a new biological method that could be used to help blind patients see. Recently, the first successful clinical trial of optogenetics done by Paris based company GenSight Biologics helped a patient partially regain his sight by wearing goggles that would “inject” proteins into his eyesight. This is done by taking light particles, and using a particular virus, transmitting them directly into the photo receiving portion of the brain to create an image, effectively skipping the need for a retina. At first, his brain could not interpret the dots correctly. He had to go through several months of wearing the goggles before eventually, he could “see” high quality images like tables and chairs. Unfortunately, the man still cannot see without the goggles, but his vision has continued to improve with continued injection of the proteins. People within the community are optimistic with the new technology and science, saying that this could potentially be a new way of treating patients with specific blindness and brain damaged conditions, because the process is safe and permanent.
Reardon, Sara. “Injection of Light-Sensitive Proteins Restores Blind Man’s Vision.” Scientific American, Scientific
American, 25 May 2021, www.scientificamerican.com/article/injection-of-light-sensitive-proteins-restores-blind-mans-vision/.
Photo by Amanda Dalbjörn on Unsplash
