Scientists for the first time have used gene therapy to dramatically improve sight in people with a rare form of blindness, a development experts called a major advance for the experimental technique.
Some vision was restored in four of the six young people who got the treatment, teams of researchers in the United States and Britain reported Sunday. Two of the volunteers who could only see hand motions were able to read a few lines of an eye chart within weeks.
The two teams of scientists, working separately, each tested gene replacement therapy in three patients with a form of a rare hereditary eye disease called Leber’s congenital amaurosis.
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