Gene therapy breakthrough allows mice to regain sight

In a recent study, which has been published in Nature Communications, researchers have inserted a gene for green opsin into the eyes of blind mice and reported that a month later, these mice were able to navigate around obstacles as easily as mice with no vision problems. “You would inject this virus into a person’s eye and, a couple months later, they’d be seeing something,” commented Ehud Isacoff (University California Berkeley, CA, USA). “With neurodegenerative diseases of the retina, often all people try to do is halt or slow further degeneration. But something that restores an image in a few months...