Can Color Blindness Be Cured With Gene Therapy?
GAINESVILLE, Fla., October 2009 Apparently so, judging from the experience of two squirrel monkeys named Dalton and Sam. Scientists added red sensitivity to cone cells in the animals’ eyes, helping them to gain the ability to distinguish between red and green. This inability is the most common form of color blindness in people. Researchers at the University of Washington had trained the monkeys previously to communicate which colors they were seeing, via a vision testing technique called the Cambridge Colour Test. University of Florida researchers developed a gene-transfer technique to use an adeno-associated virus to deliver particular genes into the retina to produce a protein called long-wavelength opsin. This protein makes pigments that are sensitive to red and green. In about five weeks, the monkeys began to detect colors that they had not seen before. After a year and a half of testing, the scientists found that the monkeys were detecting 16 different hues. More research is neede
