Whether genes will soon allow healing completely blind

The new gene therapy treatment using concurrent eyes and brains of blind people to soon regain sight to the unfortunate loss "windows of the soul".

New gene therapy may help reverse the treatment of damaged cells in the eye and brain reorganization to help process the new information.

Visual paths in the brain are formed from millions of nerve cells linked together. When the sense signal is sent to the brain, the connection between the nerve cell activity will become stronger. If people unfortunately lost eyesight due to a certain disease, the link will become more and more weak and disjointed.

For years, a new gene therapy method uses injections of healthy genes into the eye to repair mutated genes have been conducted quite many. This is said to be a promising therapy will help treat congenital blindness and retinal degeneration in the eye.

One of the first tests were successful in 2007. The trial required 10 volunteers were blind due to a genetic disease called Leber cause. this disease will cause retinal degeneration and makes people sick leaving the completely blind during the lifetime of this disease ho.Can caused primarily by at least 19 mutated genes cause.

The volunteers in the trial will be testing a gene called RPE65. Then learn will be injected with a harmless virus with their eyes. This virus will make copies of the RPE65 gene into the retina of people sick.

After this trial, some of the volunteers were able to see a hand waving in the distance of half a meter and was able to read the words on the chart six optometry. Some have begun to see the light dim after trial participants.

However, the scientists quite concerned about the sight was restored and how they have made other experiments on the brains of volunteers.

The team is expected to observe the change in the brain and they found that the degree of change is startling. Participants tested mostly aged 20 and 45, only one person.

The researchers found that, in order to soon have the visual nerve cells need to be configured as soon as possible. However, this process is likely to decrease with age.

Currently, they are seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to certify early gene therapy as a drug prescribed to treat Leber congenital blindness.

Eric Pierce, an ophthalmologist at the University. Agree with the Harvard Medical tests showed the potential flexibility of the visual system in humans School. He also gave the example of the vision loss will be more difficult to treat in the elderly or young children.

However, there is one question that many people are still concerned that this gene therapy can repair retinal cells but do not affect the signal transduction pathway to the brain or not.