SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Researchers funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) have reversed congenital blindness in mice by changing supportive cells in the retina called Müller glia into rod photoreceptors. The findings advance efforts toward regenerative therapies for blinding diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. A report of the findings appears online today in Nature. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.
"This is the first report of scientists reprogramming Müller glia to become functional rod photoreceptors in the mammalian retina," said Thomas N. Greenwell, Ph.D., NEI program director for retinal neuroscience. "Rods allow us to see in low light, but they may also help preserve cone photoreceptors, which are important for color vision and high visual acuity. Cones tend to die in later-stage eye diseases. If rods can be regenerated from inside the eye, this might be a strategy for treating diseases of the eye that affect photoreceptors."
Photoreceptors are light-sensitive cells in the retina in the back of the eye that signal the brain when activated. In mammals, including mice and humans, photoreceptors fail to regenerate on their own. Like most neurons, once mature they don't divide.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:49AM (3 children)
Does anyone think actual scientists would disseminate real discoveries this way?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by janrinok on Tuesday August 21 2018, @05:50AM (2 children)
Unfortunately, yes, I do. Do I think that the scientists are getting your $200, no, certainly not.
If you find a free source of the study please post a link in a comment. Thank you.
(Score: 0, Touché) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:15AM (1 child)
Note: all attempts to reverse congenital blindness in janrinok has failed thus far. Future attempts seem to be also pointless. Perhaps working on cognitive neural functions, such as understanding, pattern recognition, and the acceptance of aristarchus submissions are in order, in place of the mindless STEM based focus on vision as the source of all knowledge?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:04AM
Don't give up, folks. Send your $200 contribution to the 'Cure janrinok of congenital blindness to aristarchus submission' research fund. We can make it happen together.
#freearistarchus
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:35AM (2 children)
So this makes me wonder: if this can be used to improve sight by generating rods, is there anything stopping them from making it significantly better than average by making extra rods?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday August 21 2018, @02:44PM (1 child)
Indeed. Sight into the IR spectrum beyond the normal human might even be possible.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:19PM
That would seem inconvenient at best, unless you could easily switch your vision back and forth.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"