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A blind man who received a gene for a light-sensing algal protein can now see and touch objects with the help of special goggles, researchers report today. His vision gains are modest—he cannot see colors or discern faces or letters. But if the treatment helps other study participants, it may offer advantages over other vision technologies for severely blind people. And for neuroscientists, the result is a milestone: the first published report of using a relatively new technology called optogenetics to treat a disease in people. “It’s not the kind of vision people dream of, but it’s a big step,”...

Eye surgeons treating cases of mucormycosis are also having to to take tough decision to remove the patient’s eye to save the patient's life. This is a fallout of late reporting due to ignoring early symptoms.

May 1, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Hundreds of cases of blindness are among the 19,916 reports of “eye disorders” to the World Health Organization’s European drug monitoring agency following injection of experimental COVID-19 vaccinesThe nearly 20,000 eye disorders reported to VigiBase, a database for the WHO maintained by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre(UMC) in Uppsalla, Sweden, include:Eye pain (4616) Blurred vision (3839) Photophobia or light intolerance (1808) Visual impairment (1625) Eye swelling (1162) Ocular hyperaemia or red eyes (788) Eye irritation (768) Itchy eyes or eye pruritus (731) Watery eyes or increased lacrimation (653) Double vision or diplopia (559) Eye strain or...

A potential treatment for dementia and epilepsy could look to reduce the amounts of a toxic gas in the brain has been revealed in a new study using rat brain cells. The research published in Scientific Reports today (Wednesday, April 14, 2021, shows that treatments to reduce levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the brain may help to ward off damage caused by the gas. By testing rat brain cells, the team of scientists from the University of Reading, University of Leeds, and John Hopkins University in the USA found that H2S is involved in blocking a key brain cell...

I first shared this about 5 years ago on my blog, but I decided to share it again, just so a new audience can read about this interesting dog. All warm blooded animals were created by God to have five basic senses. However, when we lose our sight, or are born blind, we find it difficult to deal with a world made for those who see. Blind people cope in a world built for eyes by using trained guide dogs. It has been a partnership that both man and dog have learned to appreciate and love. Well, what I have...

Proof-of-concept study represents first successful attempt to reverse the aging clock in animals through epigenetic reprogramming. Scientists turned on embryonic genes to reprogram cells of mouse retinas. Approach reversed glaucoma-induced eye damage in animals. Approach also restored age-related vision loss in elderly mice. Work spells promise for using same approach in other tissues, organs beyond the eyes. Success sets stage for treatment of various age-related diseases in humans. ========================================================== ========================================================== Harvard Medical School scientists have successfully restored vision in mice by turning back the clock on aged eye cells in the retina to recapture youthful gene function. The team’s work,...

Damage to the retina is the leading cause of blindness in humans, affecting millions of people around the world. Unfortunately, the retina is one of the few tissues we humans can't grow back. Unlike us, other animals such as zebrafish are able to regenerate this tissue that's so crucial to our power of sight. We share 70 percent of our genes with these tiny little zebrafish, and scientists have just discovered some of the shared genes include the ones that grant zebrafish the ability to grow back their retinas. "Regeneration seems to be the default status, and the loss of...

(Right to Life UK) – A Chinese biotech firm has declared “screening out” babies with Down syndrome is a “cash cow” funding the growth of the whole business. The admission comes from a spokesperson for BGI Group – a Chinese genetics conglomerate whose main business is offering non-invasive prenatal tests, primarily used to diagnose Down syndrome. In a segment from an Aljazeera documentary titled Genesis 2.0, the spokesperson gestures towards a digital map of the world and says: “You can see clearly, especially for Down’s syndrome, we have nearly two million samples all over the world. This part is, what...

This is a special episode of the Sara Carter Show. Sara A. Carter spoke with Jennifer Brian of the Southeastern Guide Dog School about the new addition to Sara's family, a new guide dog for her husband. Brian explained to Carter how the special bond between the animal and the owner is created and how the training process begins before the dog is even born.

Currently there are no treatments for Advanced Dry AMD, also known as GA, which can lead to significant central vision loss.The National Eye Institute (NEI), one of the federally funded National Institutes of Health, is launching the first clinical trial in the US for induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), stem cells that are derived from mature human cells. The iPSC in the landmark study are being derived from the patient’s own blood and developed into retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells for the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA), the advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which causes progressive central...

Clinician scientists from Bristol Medical School and the Bristol Eye Hospital examined the case of a teenage patient who first visited his GP complaining of tiredness. The link between his nutritional status and vision was not picked up until much later, and by then, his visual impairment had become permanent.

A teen in the UK who has eaten nothing but french fries, potato chips and white bread since elementary school is now blind because of vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition damage. The boy was taken to his doctor at 14 because he felt tired. He was diagnosed with macrocytic anemia and a vitamin B12 deficiency and prescribed supplements, according to a study published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. He neither stuck with the vitamins nor changed his diet, however, and his condition worsened.Three years later, he was taken to the Bristol Eye Hospital with reported vision loss.According to the...

When it comes to regeneration, some animals are capable of amazing feats. If you cut off a salamander’s leg, it will grow back. When threatened, some geckos drop their tails to distract their predator, only to regrow them later. Other animals take the process even further. Planarian worms, jellyfish, and sea anemones can actually regenerate their bodies after being cut in half. Led by Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Mansi Srivastava, a team of researchers is shedding new light on how animals pull off the feat, along the way uncovering a number of DNA switches that appear to...

Back at the start of the year, an unexpected controversy arose regarding the London Marathon’s rules and regulations for guide runners who support visually-impaired participants in the race. For years, London’s official policy said guide runners could not receive a medal, despite having traversed the 26.2 miles with their partner like every other finisher. (In reality, volunteers at the finish line handed everyone a medal who wanted one, and a London Marathon official told Runner’s World UK they didn’t enforce the rule. But many were upset at the principle of the stance.) Runner’s World UK and other media outlets sourced...

Donald Trump Ordered Illegal Removal of Braille Because ‘No Blind People are Going to Live in Trump Tower’: Report By Jessica Kwong On 9/12/18 at 2:38 PM President Donald Trump allegedly ordered an architect not to include braille in Trump Tower elevator panels because “no blind people” would live in his building—even after being informed that excluding the tactile writing system is against federal law. The alleged interaction was recounted by Barbara Res, who led construction at the Trump Organization, in an opinion piece in the New York Daily News on Wednesday. "What’s this?” Trump, noticing the small raised dots,...

Our cell phones are practically connected to us. Now, scientists at the University of Toledo say the blue light that comes from electronics is doing permanent damage to our vision. A dark room at the University of Toledo is where researchers have found blue light, specifically, leads to macular degeneration.

* Spark Therapeutics' Luxturna will cost $850,000 for a one-time treatment. * The gene therapy treats a rare, inherited retinal disease that can lead to blindness. * Spark also unveiled a set of payment and access programs, including tying payments to how well the therapy works and exploring payment by installment. The treatment is delivered just once, a facet of gene therapy that poses unique pricing questions in an industry fueled by steady payments for chronic therapies. "It's wildly expensive but, to be very frank, I think they've priced it what I'll call responsibly," said Dr. Steve Miller, chief medical...

The leech man: Lawyer hopes nightly blood-sucking treatment will help return his sight after his 'schizophrenic son blinded him'A lawyer is hoping that a nightly blood-sucking leech treatment will help return his eyesight after his schizophrenic son allegedly blinded him in a blitz attack. John Dunlap, 80, is placing his trust in an experimental treatment that requires him to attach several leeches around his eyes so that one day he might see again. The lawyer from Memphis started the bizarre therapy after his bipolar and schizophrenic son Andrew, 41, allegedly attacked Dunlap and blinded him in 2015. With the help...

Scientists are on the brink of restoring sight to the blind by sending moving images directly to the brain. In a world-first, surgeons have implanted a visual stimulator chip in the brain of a 30-year-old woman. The patient, who has been totally blind for seven years, saw coloured flashes, lines and spots when signals were sent to her brain from a computer. Her doctors are now planning to send footage from a tiny video camera to the brain, which could provide the world’s first bionic eye and restore sight to millions. The technology bypasses the eyes, meaning it has the...

(Note: When pasting this document into FreeRepublic, it seems that most of the special formatting is lost, such as bold, italics, underlined words and embedded links. To read the document with the formatting and embedded links go to the link of the document.) Forbidden To Speak About Sin On September 14, 2016, at the monthly formation of the clergy of the diocese of Perugia, my cardinal said: “I would like to say something that I forgot to tell you, but I feel it is important. Because I myself had to reflect a lot on this to convince myself. When you...