PARIS - Two monkeys were cured of colour blindness, thanks to gene therapy that one day may open the way to treating eye disorders in humans, scientists said yesterday.
The ground-breaking technique used a cold virus as a "Trojan horse" to infect cone-shaped cells in the retina, stealthily delivering a gene that provides a pigment which is sensitive to red.
About 20 weeks after the treatment, the two primates began to acquire full colour vision, according to the paper, published by the British journal, Nature.
It thus gives the lie to the belief that congenital vision defects become "hard-wired" through neural connections soon after birth, and cannot be corrected.
Colour vision in the two adult squirrel monkeys has remained stable more than two years after treatment, the paper says.
Red-green colour blindness affects between 5 and 8 per cent of men, and around 1 per cent of women. AFP
From TODAY, World – Thursday, 17-Sep-2009
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