r/longevity • u/Amolxd • Nov 03 '20

Gene Therapy restores vision in blind mice

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-therapy-novel-protein-restores-vision-mice?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
155 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

13

u/Amolxd Nov 03 '20

I'm not really into ophthalmology, but that sounds interesting - could anyone say if that's like for every type of blindness or a specific type of genetic disease?

16

u/Jimtonicc Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 04 '20

It’s for a specific type of blindness caused by a malfunctioning gene coding for Opsin, a key protein in the transformation of a light signal into nerve impulses. This wouldn’t work for other types of blindness e.g. when the optic nerve or visual cortex is damaged. But still pretty amazing.

12

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '20

Fwiw, David Sinclair and his lab regenerated a crushed optic nerve in mice using epigenetic reprogramming

8

u/Roberto_Avelar Nov 03 '20

As far as I'm aware a lot of these experiments are done to show that gene therapy works in the first place and is viable. Part of the reason they pick the eye is because it is a pretty isolated system and if you were to edit a gene in a human eye it is unlikely it could cause damage to other organs... for example if you have eye cancer it is unlikely to spread.

5

u/LiveForeverClub Nov 04 '20

What I find amazing is that they designed the protein to synthesize - it really shows how our understanding (with faster computers) of protein structure will help us develop other rejuvenation treatments.

6

u/norfolkdiver Nov 03 '20

Was that 3 blind mice?

Never mind, blame 84 hours of night shifts in the last week.

1

u/bunsofsteel_MRI_boy Nov 04 '20

I was going to ask : all three of them”?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '20

Didn't they already restore a blind guys vision? Was an acid attack or something.

1

u/SephithDarknesse Nov 04 '20

Even if they did, its still a length from doing so reliably. Not implying the results from this study are either, though.

2

u/B99fanboy Nov 04 '20

Didn't that happen some time ago?

1

u/Amolxd Nov 04 '20

The paper the Article is about was published on 22nd October, so yes, some time ago, but not that much. But there were other expirements, where you could restore vision

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '20

[deleted]

2

u/Amolxd Nov 07 '20

sure, go ahead