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[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
Now, here’s something you don’t see every day: scientists cure color-blind monkeys. According to a report published online in the journal Nature, researchers have used gene therapy to allow color-blind squirrel monkeys to look at their fruit in a whole new light.
In one type of squirrel monkey, the males lack a visual pigment called L-opsin. Its absence renders the monkeys color-blind, unable to distinguish reds and green. Most of the females, on the other hand, see in full color. So the scientists got to wondering: what would happen if they gave a boy squirrel monkey the same opsin that girls have.
Using a harmless virus, the scientists introduced the pigment gene into the eyes of color-blind adults. Lo and behold, about a month later, the monkeys with the new L-opsin gene were able to see hues they’d never seen before.
The research doesn’t mean we’ll soon be trying the same thing in humans. Because we’re not yet ready to monkey with our own selves that way. But the fact that a fellow primate was able to make and use the new pigments, even though they received the genes as adults, was a real eye-opener.
—Karen Hopkin
For more on this monkey business, go to Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blindness in Adult Monkeys
[Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.]
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5 Comments
Add Commenti think that it is a cool testing subject and it could become more advanced and safe it can be used to test humans! Maybe this could be done also on younger monkeys. It would be good also to test on many monkeys to be sure it works.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-A 7th grade class in Tucson. :-)
How do you know the color-blind monkey was able to see the hues after the virus infection?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's hard to be 100% sure what animals see, but behavioral tests are typically used. A monkey may be trained, for example, to pick between a red ball and a green ball. If he picks the green ball, he gets rewarded with food. If the monkey can consistently learn to grab the green ball, it is logical to deduce that he can tell red and green apart. If you continue this with finer and finer differences, you could figure out what the monkey most likely is seeing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are other methods, but I've read several papers using this approach.
So what did happen?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow ……how did it happen？
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow did they introduce the pigment gene into the eyes of color-blind specimen without any adjection？
You kown gene therapy not widely acceped because people can't predict the result of reaction between internal and external genes which maybe leads to a genic disaster.
External genes juet like the sword of Damocles,maybe ti's one of barriers on the way to practise gene therapy.