New Chemical Allows Blind Mice to See
Three blind mice. Or, for experimental robustness, a few dozen more. In either case, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, recently accomplished something seemingly impossible: By injecting a tiny amount of a specially-formulated chemical into their eyes, they temporarily restored the mice’s ability to see.
Electronic retinal implants and genetic modifications to help blind people see have been the subject of experiments for several years. But this new chemical, described in a paper published yesterday in the journal Neuron, opens up an entirely novel, flexible approach to restoring vision.
“The advantage of this approach is that it is a simple chemical, which means that you can change the dosage, you can use it in combination with other therapies, or you can discontinue the therapy if you don’t like the results,” said Berkeley professor Richard Kramer in a press release. “As improved chemicals become available, you could offer them to patients. You can’t do that when you surgically implant a chip or after you genetically modify somebody.”