A husband and wife team at the University of Washington recently ‘cured’ color-blindness in two monkeys. Monkeys are similar to humans in that sometimes they are born with a defective or missing gene that makes it impossible for them to differentiate between red and green. It was once believed that this problem could not be fixed because scientists thought that the brain could not process colors it had never processed before. However, this finding proves that the brain is capable of processing new colors if there are the receptors in the eye. It is accepted that color blindness is a hereditary trait passed on from generation. It only takes one gene to malfunction of be nonexistent for colorblindness to take effect. So the researchers at the University of Washington created a virus that would inject this gene into the eye. The virus did and within twenty weeks the monkeys had gained to ability to see red and green as different colors. However, their ability to distinguish was not as good as monkeys who were born free of color-blindness, but one researcher believes that it is not impossible to give them the vision of standard monkeys. He believes that the treatment just requires improvement to give perfect sight to these monkeys and possibly humans.
The researchers at the University of Washington believe that someday this could be a safe and successful procedure to conduct on humans. They believe that this would be a huge boom in the field of colorblindness as without much risk people could see in full color. The researchers do not want to stop at just green red colorblindness. They believe this treatment can be applied to those with achromatopsia, which is blindness to all colors. They believe this treatment could help people with degenerative sight disorders, ones which where sight gets worse as the person gets older. However to do this researchers will have to make sure that these treatments will target only certain photoreceptor cells for them to start testing.
This experiment brings hope to population that has been plagued by a disorder to various degrees. To some this would not be a great revelation, as in someone with simple red-green colorblindness. For others with more serious disorders this could not only allow them to see the world in a different way it would open up a realm of possibilities. Some of us might take for granted our ability to see different colors but it plays a vital role in things as basic as our commute to choosing what we want to wear. This treatment would make certain peoples lives much easier but also open up doors to new careers, which might have been denied to them because of the disability they have in their sight.
Hayes and Graham
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Interesting finding. Gene therapy can open many doors but is very controversial. I would have liked to read more about these possibilities and issues related to gene therapy.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the virus is still not as effective as monkeys that are born without colorblindness, it still seems very beneficial. I would also like to know, though, did the virus have any other effects on the monkeys besides their colorblind condition, negative or positive?
ReplyDeleteI think this is a big breakthrough in what the brain can still process after a certain time.
ReplyDeleteI wonder though, how could they tell that the monkeys could not see as well as regular monkeys even after the virus was injected?
Also were there any side effects to this treatment?
This is interesting because it provides promise and hope for more diseases and disorders to be cured in, if not the near, the far future. I would love to know more about whether or not scientists have made similar breakthroughs in testing, i.e. if they have discovered ways to alter the genes coding for Hemophilia or Huntington's disease, for example.
ReplyDeleteSo I looked up if there were any current uses of gene therapy but actually there are none because the FDA has not approved any, though there are some in clinical trials. Although apparently many of the gene therapy treatments have been unsuccessful, I think that this show that there is potential in this type of treatment. The link to the website I looked at is http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml
ReplyDeleteThese types of breakthroughs are happening all the time in science these days. Soon we will be choosing what hair color our babies will have like in Gattaca. The DNA frontier is upon us.
ReplyDeleteIm not sure if my last thing sent. I found the test they used on color blind monkey. heres a video
ReplyDeletehttp://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=438
The blog on the colorblindness experiment sounded very intriguing to me. I believe that it is really cool that by doing an experiment on one hypothetical topic can lead to a much bigger result. For Instance they did the Experiment on a certain breed of moneys and cured there problem of not being able to see shades of green and red. This could later on lead to something bigger. The experimenters may one day figure out how to cure colorblind problems in other species including humans. Maybe even forever!-Philip
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