Restoring partial vision to a blind patient

Larry I Benowitz; John E Dowling; Roman J Giger; Thomas V Johnson; Donald J Zack

doi:10.12703/r-01-0000012

Restoring partial vision to a blind patient

Fac Rev. 2022 Jun 27:11:17. doi: 10.12703/r-01-0000012. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Larry I Benowitz¹, John E Dowling², Roman J Giger³, Thomas V Johnson⁴, Donald J Zack⁵

Affiliations

¹ Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
² Harvard University.
³ University of Michigan Medical School.
⁴ Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
⁵ Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Abstract

This paper reports an important breakthrough in partially restoring sight to a man who had lost his vision due to retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a heritable retinal degenerative disease that affects approximately 1 in 4000 people. Long considered an insurmountable challenge, a stellar team of vision scientists, engineers, basic biologists, and others, working together for many years, has enabled a man who had been legally blind for decades to begin distinguishing objects and navigating his environment¹.

Keywords: RGC; Retinitis pigmentosa; cones; retinal ganglion cells; rods.

Publication types

Comment

Grants and funding

P50 HD105351/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States