If you have read any of my previous blogs, you probably know about colour corrective glasses by now. These glasses allow colourblind people to see colours they wouldn’t be able to see normally. This is already a huge scientific breakthrough and I have certainly benefited personally. However, there are some drawbacks: It isn’t a permanent cure and it only works for 4 out of 5 people. Some types of colour blindness can’t use the glasses at all! But now, as science is advancing, there may be a more permanent solution to colour blindness. Let's get into it.
What is gene therapy?
First of all, to understand what gene therapy is, you need to know what a gene is. (I hope most of you do). In basic terms, genes carry information or instructions to determine your different traits and help to produce different enzymes and proteins. A faulty gene can cause things like diseases or disorders, for example cancer or, more relevant to us, colourblindness. Gene therapy can be implemented in different ways, such as: replacing the defective gene that is causing the problem, adding genes to help fight the disease or disorder, or deactivating the gene that is problematic.
This can be done in 2 ways. Scientists can use a vehicle, or vector as it is known, to help deliver the genes. Viruses make for good vectors, as they have a natural ability to deliver genetic material into cells. However the virus is modified to make sure it doesn’t cause infectious disease. This vector can then be injected into the specific area that is causing trouble. Gene therapy can also be done outside the body, where samples of the patient's tissue can be taken, and specific cells can be separated from that. The vector can then be added and left to multiply until it reaches the desired outcome, where the cells can be reintroduced to the body.
How does it work with colour blindness?
It may come as no surprise that some animals don’t have the same colour vision as humans do. One such animal is the squirrel monkey, which has similar vision to someone with red and green colour blindness. So basically I have the eyesight of a squirrel monkey...yay. The way they corrected the monkey’s colour vision deficiency was by injecting a visual pigment gene to replace their missing ones in the sub-retina. If you don’t know what a subretinal injection is, it is basically an injection straight through your eyeball. Yikes! Now you may be wondering how the scientists know the monkey is cured or not, because... it's a monkey, it can’t talk. Well here is a Youtube link of Dalton, the squirrel monkey, taking the test after treatment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEeU8CV_3Mo&feature=emb_title).
Now for some bad news. These trials and tests were done in 2009, so you might think that eleven years later they have made significant progress, maybe even gone to human testing. Well, no. When doing research for this blog, I found they need to apply to six government organisations, in order for human trials to go ahead. I also imagine not many people want to apply for getting stabbed in the eyeball, but maybe that's just me. Also these trials are specifically for red/green colorblindness. So, sorry deuteranopes and tritanopes! They still need to figure your colourblindness out.
So, there you have it, another possible treatment/cure for colour blindness. It must also be said that gene therapy can be used for much more than colour blindness, and it could allow doctors to cure disease without medicine or surgery. Gene therapy is still in its early phases, and work is only really being done on diseases that have no known cure, but hopefully soon this idea can become a reality.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that there are no limitations on what's possible when scientists put their mind to a cure! Roll on 2021!
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