Speaker 1: Guess what will? What's that mango? So I was organizing
Speaker 1: my computer and my bookmarks folder last week and I
Speaker 1: found this old story I had bookmarked forever ago. It
Speaker 1: was about this guy named Josh Silver who created these
Speaker 1: self adjusted glasses. Have you heard about these? I do
Speaker 1: remember this from a while back. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: little foggy on it. I remember they came with these
Speaker 1: little syringes to set them right. Yeah, that's right, and
Speaker 1: they are amazing. So basically Silver figured out that if
Speaker 1: you put a little bit of silicon oil in between
Speaker 1: two pieces of round glass, you can make these adjustable
Speaker 1: glasses for people with poor vision. And you don't even
Speaker 1: need an optometrist like in the newest versions. I I
Speaker 1: think you can actually just adjust a dial with your
Speaker 1: hands until it squirts in the right amount of oils
Speaker 1: so you can see clearly. And then you just said it.
Speaker 1: And the things only cost like twenty dollars a piece. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and so they're actually reusable, so you can adjust
Speaker 1: them as your vision changes. And the whole idea was
Speaker 1: to help people in developing nations. But apparently the frames
Speaker 1: do have one downside, and that's that the frames have
Speaker 1: to be circular. Well, I mean that's not terrible. Just
Speaker 1: think John Lennon or Gandhi even I mean some big names,
Speaker 1: that's right. And I've actually seen some competing brands online
Speaker 1: now that use different shapes. But it's all pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: And it got me thinking. If we have these super
Speaker 1: smart and super cheap solutions for people with poor vision,
Speaker 1: how far are we from giving sight to people with
Speaker 1: no vision? And that's our big question today. Will we
Speaker 1: ever cure blindness? Can stem cells and gene therapy help?
Speaker 1: And why should humans let a doctor stick a bit
Speaker 1: of algae into their eye sockets? Let's dive in. Hey
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius on Will
Speaker 1: Pearson And as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: main guest Shot Ticketer and on the other side of
Speaker 1: the soundproof glass wearing a blindfold as he concentrates on
Speaker 1: the sound. He's such an artistic genius, that's our Palin
Speaker 1: producer Tristan McNeil. I guess he does that when he's
Speaker 1: focusing now, yeah, I think it's something he picked up
Speaker 1: while he was watching, you know, one of his favorite movies,
Speaker 1: which was The Third Karate Kick. The most important in
Speaker 1: it really is a pretty important one. But but that's
Speaker 1: Tristan anyway. You know, while Tristan can restore his site
Speaker 1: anytime he pleases, there are millions of people with actual
Speaker 1: visual impairments who don't have that option. And in fact,
Speaker 1: according to that GEO, roughly one in every two hundred
Speaker 1: people on Earth can't see. That's about thirty nine million people.
Speaker 1: In addition, there are another two hundred and forty six
Speaker 1: million people with conditions that moderately or severely limit their vision.
Speaker 1: So despite the fact that humans have spent thousands of
Speaker 1: years searching for ways to remedy blindness, all that collective
Speaker 1: effort hasn't been enough yet. But we're actually getting much closer.
Speaker 1: So for today's episode, we're shining a light on the
Speaker 1: newest sign and trying to determine will we find a
Speaker 1: cure for blindness. So you know what's bonkers is I
Speaker 1: was looking up cures for blindness and the craziest story
Speaker 1: I found was about this guy from Foulmth, Maine. I
Speaker 1: guess he was a trucker from the area and he'd
Speaker 1: been in this serious accident on this icy bridge and
Speaker 1: he lost his vision as a result. So his wife
Speaker 1: had this really sweet story of I guess leading him
Speaker 1: around the house and being his eyes for him and
Speaker 1: and giving them all these mnemonic devices of like how
Speaker 1: many stairs to go down then up so he could
Speaker 1: get out of the house. And she was doing this
Speaker 1: for years, like eight years or nine years or something.
Speaker 1: And then one day, during a storm, he went out
Speaker 1: to get one of his pet chickens and as he
Speaker 1: was out there, he was struck with lightning and he
Speaker 1: was completely stunned, but he went in after he took
Speaker 1: a nap, and when he woke up he could actually
Speaker 1: see again, no way from the lightning strike. Yeah, it's unbelievable,
Speaker 1: and I he was on the news everywhere, from like
Speaker 1: local news to the Washington Post to stations in Japan,
Speaker 1: and like no one could figure out why it jarred
Speaker 1: his brain into reconnecting his vision. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: such a crazy and amazing story. But you know, but
Speaker 1: back to what you're saying, I'm actually glad that you
Speaker 1: mentioned upfront that there's so much variation on the term
Speaker 1: blind because thing of blindness as a complete lack of
Speaker 1: functional vision and only that is actually an oversimplification. So
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this until we started digging into the research.
Speaker 1: But you know how someone with good vision is said
Speaker 1: to have vision, Well, someone who's legally blind is defined
Speaker 1: as having equal to or worse than, twenty two hundred
Speaker 1: and their strongest die. And you might be wondering what
Speaker 1: that means. If you're you can actually see an object
Speaker 1: about two hundred feet away, but with twenty two hundred
Speaker 1: you can see no further than twenty feet, which means
Speaker 1: even though they're leally blind, they can still see and
Speaker 1: with the aid of prescription glasses or contacts, you might
Speaker 1: actually be able to see pretty clearly. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: twenty feet is not exactly just a short distance, and
Speaker 1: I guess it does help us. Remember, just like with sidedness,
Speaker 1: there's this spectrum for blindness, so some sided people see
Speaker 1: better than others, and some blind people see worse than others.
Speaker 1: And so I guess that nuance in all of that
Speaker 1: is is easy to lose track of. Sometimes that's definitely true,
Speaker 1: although I did read that people who developed even a
Speaker 1: minor visual impairment like near sightedness actually have a higher
Speaker 1: risk of developing a more serious eye condition down the line,
Speaker 1: which is kind of scary to think about when you
Speaker 1: consider that something like the current US population is actually
Speaker 1: near sighted. Well, and the stats on that are getting,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe even scarier than that. There was a
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen study from the journal Ophthalmology, and
Speaker 1: it was talking about the fact that the number of
Speaker 1: people with myopia or near sightedness that's only expected to
Speaker 1: grow in the coming years, and in fact, by twenty fifty,
Speaker 1: half of the world's population will be near sighted. So
Speaker 1: why is that, like, what's making bad vision so rampant? Well,
Speaker 1: I think the guess that most people would have on
Speaker 1: this is pretty accurate. You know, if you think about
Speaker 1: the amount of time we spend indoors staring at our screens,
Speaker 1: and so the result is that more people have eyes
Speaker 1: that work well when looking at things up close, but
Speaker 1: not so much when faced with far away objects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of baffling that we do this to ourselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm saying this as I'm taking selfie of
Speaker 1: myself and also checking the weather good stuff. I don't
Speaker 1: know which you do more, take selfies or check the weather.
Speaker 1: But it's not stop. So, of course, the phones and
Speaker 1: the tiny screens is only part of the story. There's
Speaker 1: some visual impairments are obviously there from birth. You've got
Speaker 1: others that developed later in life, and some like our
Speaker 1: truck driver friend or the result of trauma. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and then they're the types of blindness that are brought
Speaker 1: on by disease. And you know, all of that variation
Speaker 1: means there's never going to be a universal cure for
Speaker 1: vision laws. I mean, there's a whole host of things
Speaker 1: that can cause and and that means we'll need a
Speaker 1: wide range of treatments to cover all of our bases
Speaker 1: on this. Well, let's talk about some of the most
Speaker 1: promising strategies, because there are three major ones at the moment.
Speaker 1: We've got bionic implants, stem cell research, and there's gene therapy.
Speaker 1: And the first of these has been in play the longest,
Speaker 1: with different styles of bionic eyes that are popped up
Speaker 1: all over the world for a while now here in
Speaker 1: the States. The first to be approved by the FDA
Speaker 1: was the Argus Too. This is a system that pairs
Speaker 1: electrodes and planet in the redina with a video camera
Speaker 1: attached to a pair of fancy classes. Well, and you
Speaker 1: should talk about the kind of blindness that helps with it,
Speaker 1: because if I remember, it's pretty specific right, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so it's aimed at people who suffer from a rare
Speaker 1: hereditary disease called Rednitis pigmentosa, and that causes cells in
Speaker 1: the red knet to decreate over time, and they're between
Speaker 1: one and two thousand people affected by it in the US. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: the condition feels like looking down a tunnel that's gradually
Speaker 1: gradually narrowing until it finally disappears. And what the CEO
Speaker 1: of Argus claims is that the company is trying to
Speaker 1: use the device to almost reopen that window that's closed
Speaker 1: on them. I mean that sounds amazing. But these implants
Speaker 1: have obviously been in development for a while now, so
Speaker 1: so how advanced is the Argus too. The thing is,
Speaker 1: there's actually more cutting edge technology out there. The Argus
Speaker 1: is just the last one the FDA is signed off on.
Speaker 1: But if you look at what's emerging from labs, you
Speaker 1: can actually find devices that are even more effective at
Speaker 1: helping people see. So for example, there's this one being
Speaker 1: tested in the UK where a microchip is implanted in
Speaker 1: the eye to stimulate the optic nerve. The chip basically
Speaker 1: feeds visual information to the nerve, which in turn sends
Speaker 1: it up to the brain. I mean, a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff sounds kind of like science fiction while also
Speaker 1: being totally believable at the same time. But I'm curious,
Speaker 1: I mean, how close to full sightedness to these kinds
Speaker 1: of devices actually get somebody. So that's one interesting point.
Speaker 1: Both the artus too and the microchip I mentioned they
Speaker 1: only deliver images in black and white, and since the
Speaker 1: argus only uses about sixty electrodes to stimulate the rediness neurons,
Speaker 1: the resolution isn't actually that good yet. So these implants
Speaker 1: can help patients distinguish between light and dark, which I
Speaker 1: guess means they can read large printed letters or even
Speaker 1: recognize where objects are located. But you can't exactly drive
Speaker 1: a car or you know, pilot a plane yet. And again,
Speaker 1: these devices are only effective for treating a rare kind
Speaker 1: of visual impairment in the first place. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: should stop for a second to acknowledge the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, the leading cause of blindness around the world
Speaker 1: is is something we've actually developed a cure for, and
Speaker 1: and those are cataracts, And so, just as a refresher
Speaker 1: on this, cataracts are basically this build up of protein
Speaker 1: on the lens of the eye and a clouding that
Speaker 1: results in you know, in faded colors and blurry vision,
Speaker 1: and it gets worse over time. So cataracts tend to
Speaker 1: occur as people get older, but they can also result
Speaker 1: from congenital problems or maybe even physical trauma from time
Speaker 1: to time if it happens directly to the eye. And
Speaker 1: like I said, cataracts typically can be treated through surgeries
Speaker 1: that they just replaced the clouded lens with artificial ones.
Speaker 1: So every time I think about cataracts surgeries, I always
Speaker 1: think about this origin story we had from mental floss
Speaker 1: And the only reason I remember is that I'm actually
Speaker 1: terrified at touching my eyes or anything even being close
Speaker 1: to my eye. But the story was that, I think
Speaker 1: it was like an ancient Greece or Rome, there was
Speaker 1: this goat hurder who had a blind goat and he
Speaker 1: accidentally saw it walk into a thorn bush and when
Speaker 1: it scratched its eyes, suddenly you could start seeing again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like it's definitely a story that
Speaker 1: gets mentioned as as that inspiration for cataract surgeries. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true or not, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely an interesting story, and the procedures have been around
Speaker 1: for a long time. I mean, you know Celsus, the
Speaker 1: old Roman physician, he actually described early cataract surgeries. And
Speaker 1: you know, this guy was alive in like twenty five BC,
Speaker 1: so this is a long, long time ago. And you know,
Speaker 1: obviously the surgery has evolved over the centuries. But even
Speaker 1: though twenty million people have done it every year, there
Speaker 1: are still huge swaths of the world population who don't
Speaker 1: have access to treatment, or maybe that don't even know
Speaker 1: that it exists. Yeah, which is really sad. And in
Speaker 1: this case, I guess the challenge isn't so much developing
Speaker 1: a cure as it is finding a better way to
Speaker 1: roll out the cure did those who need it. But
Speaker 1: you know, for the millions of people who do get
Speaker 1: the surgery, do they return to full vision or is
Speaker 1: it more of a mixed bag? Well, it varies. I mean,
Speaker 1: for some it's a complete fix, and others still need
Speaker 1: glasses or contacts in order to get the full effect.
Speaker 1: But actually there's a new surgical technique being tested that
Speaker 1: would do away with the mixed results while also making
Speaker 1: the whole procedure a lot less of invasive than it is. Now,
Speaker 1: So how does that work? Well, strangely enough, it's by
Speaker 1: using the body's own stem cells to regrow a functional
Speaker 1: lens for the eye. How weird is that? So? I
Speaker 1: don't even know if I should be embarrassed to admit this,
Speaker 1: But before this episode, I didn't know that I had
Speaker 1: stem cells. Well, I don't think a lot of people do.
Speaker 1: And and actually every tissue in the body contains stem
Speaker 1: cells and they can replace any damage cells within that tissue.
Speaker 1: And you know the problem is that stem cells tend
Speaker 1: to diminish as we age, and that's why this new
Speaker 1: approach is mainly dealt with cataracts that are in children.
Speaker 1: You know, they just have more stem cells to work
Speaker 1: with than adults do. That's crazy that kids can get cataracts.
Speaker 1: Like I thought it was just for goats and old people.
Speaker 1: But you're learning so much today. And so if this
Speaker 1: new technique uses stem cells that are already in place,
Speaker 1: why is it a surgery. Well, the surgery is to
Speaker 1: remove the non functional ie lens while leaving the functional
Speaker 1: stem cells you know, within that lens intact in that situation.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of like setting aside seeds from a
Speaker 1: piece of fruit that's gone bad, Like you can't salvage
Speaker 1: the flesh that's turned, but you know, the seeds can
Speaker 1: still be used to produce a new fruit. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of a weird analogy. I've been working on it
Speaker 1: for days. I was trying to think of a good analogy,
Speaker 1: but I felt good about that one. So, um, I
Speaker 1: guess you've got this I fruit from these stem cell
Speaker 1: seeds and and that actually ends up being useful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see it worked. This was a top shelf analogy. This
Speaker 1: is this is pretty good. Well, actually, let me read
Speaker 1: you this breakdown from an article I found in Popsie.
Speaker 1: It says, quote, the researchers tried their procedure on twelve
Speaker 1: human babies under two years old. They found that in
Speaker 1: these children, the lenses were functional and regenerated faster than
Speaker 1: the twenty five children who received even the standard treatment
Speaker 1: for cataracts. The new technique also reduced the chance of
Speaker 1: complications and increase the clarity of the visual field by
Speaker 1: twenty times. Actually, looking at this, like, the only downside
Speaker 1: is that older patients with cataracts would have a tougher
Speaker 1: time regenerating lenses because you know, their lack of stem cells,
Speaker 1: but this procedure could help them, it would just take
Speaker 1: longer for the new lens to form. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still an amazing breakthrough either way, And for elderly
Speaker 1: patients there's always the option of stem cell transplants from
Speaker 1: a different person's body, like the sixth year old from
Speaker 1: Japan who was able to stave off blindness with little
Speaker 1: help from his friend, where his friends stem cells rather well,
Speaker 1: I definitely want to hear about this, and we should
Speaker 1: probably talk about gene therapy while we're at it. But
Speaker 1: before we dig in, let's take a quick break. You're
Speaker 1: listening to part time genius. We're talking about the most
Speaker 1: promising efforts to cure blindness. All right, mangoes. So, historically
Speaker 1: stem cell transplantation has been an ethically touchy subject for
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people. So doing your research
Speaker 1: this week, did did you find anything that might ease
Speaker 1: those concerns? And if not, what's the best way to
Speaker 1: reach you for anybody that wants to send you, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe an angry note or email. Well, first off, I
Speaker 1: suggest writing your senator, not your local podcast host. But
Speaker 1: uh yeah, we we've definitely figured out how to utilize
Speaker 1: stem cells in ways that don't carry that ethical stigma
Speaker 1: that I guess embryonic stem cell research does. So, as
Speaker 1: we were teasing before the break, in March of two seventeen,
Speaker 1: a Japanese men in his sixties became the first person
Speaker 1: to receive a stem cell transplant from another person in
Speaker 1: order to keep from going blind. So who was that donor?
Speaker 1: Because you know, I'm thinking about this if if older
Speaker 1: people don't have many stem cells left to donate, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you said this was ethically safe. So I
Speaker 1: assume these weren't from a kid, right, So this is
Speaker 1: amazing thing. The donated cells came from a living adult.
Speaker 1: They just weren't stem cells when they were removed from
Speaker 1: the donor. Al Right, So how does that work? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Like did they get the mature cells to revert back
Speaker 1: into stem cells? Exactly? They Benjamin button them. So scientists
Speaker 1: basically took some mature cells and it was skin cells
Speaker 1: in this case, and then they reprogrammed them back into
Speaker 1: this embryonic state and from there the cells were manipulated
Speaker 1: until they became a type of redinal cell that's useful
Speaker 1: for slowing down map of the degeneration. All right, So
Speaker 1: this surgery last year. What was this the first time
Speaker 1: reprogrammed cells like this have been used to treat blindness? No,
Speaker 1: so that's actually the crazy part. This is the first
Speaker 1: time using reprogrammed cells taken from someone else's body. In
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, they've done this before. A Japanese woman
Speaker 1: received retinal cells that have been reprogrammed from a sample
Speaker 1: of her own skin cells and the procedure worked. But
Speaker 1: there's actually a higher risk of genetic abnormality when using
Speaker 1: your own skin cells. So the success of last year's
Speaker 1: transplant was this giant leap towards making stem cell transplants
Speaker 1: both safer and easier to perform. Yeah, and it actually
Speaker 1: reminds me of something else from nat GEO, which which
Speaker 1: mentioned that neuroscientists really appreciate studies on the eye because,
Speaker 1: as one of them said, quote, it's the only place
Speaker 1: you see the brain without drilling a hole. So obviously
Speaker 1: I see the advantage of not having to drill holes
Speaker 1: in people's heads. But how exactly do we see the
Speaker 1: brain through the eye. Well, the ideas that the retina
Speaker 1: is basically a bundle of neurons connected to the brain
Speaker 1: via the optic nerve so it sort of makes the
Speaker 1: whole eye seem like, as one neuroscientist put it, an
Speaker 1: out pouching of the brain. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: heard the word out pouching before. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: use the word out pouching, So I kind of crafted
Speaker 1: all of my notes around being able to say that
Speaker 1: because it's super useful and scrabble, but but it actually
Speaker 1: is really fascinating it. The whole idea is that because
Speaker 1: of this connection between the I and the brain, there's
Speaker 1: a good chance that treatments that are effective in the
Speaker 1: eye might also have applications in the brain or maybe
Speaker 1: even the spinal cord. So, as David Dobbs puts it
Speaker 1: for nat GEO quote, experimental strategies now focused on the
Speaker 1: eye may drive future treatments for the whole human organism.
Speaker 1: Gene therapy offers the promise of fixing faulty genes that
Speaker 1: cause illnesses of all kinds. So it goes on to
Speaker 1: talk about some examples here he says, you know, stem
Speaker 1: cells off for the promise of replacing entire tissue structures.
Speaker 1: Bionic implants may replace failing organs, the eyes becoming a
Speaker 1: window not just to the soul, but also to the
Speaker 1: possibilities and limits, of course of therapeutic approaches on which
Speaker 1: medicine is betting its future. I mean, it's super cool
Speaker 1: to think that the research of curing blindness is kind
Speaker 1: of leading the way in all these new fields. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. And uh, you mentioned gene therapy being used
Speaker 1: to fix disease causing illnesses. I'm guessing those are diseases
Speaker 1: that cause blindness as well. Well. Right, So, so instead
Speaker 1: of eye conditions that are largely age related, you know,
Speaker 1: like cataracts or macular degeneration, and you know, gene therapy
Speaker 1: this would be a way to target congenital or hereditary
Speaker 1: eye diseases. And you know, so the way it works
Speaker 1: is by injecting healthy genes into the eye and that
Speaker 1: then helps repair the damage or mutated cells. So have
Speaker 1: we already tried this? Well, yeah, one of the earliest
Speaker 1: successful trials was started back in two thousand seven and
Speaker 1: researchers at the University of Pennsylvania they got together ten
Speaker 1: blind volunteers and they all had Liber's congenital amurosis and
Speaker 1: that's this hereditary disease that causes retinal degeneration. And and
Speaker 1: then of course blindness soon after that. And the volunteers
Speaker 1: were injected with this harmless virus, and it contained healthy
Speaker 1: copies of a gene. It was that same gene that
Speaker 1: had mutated in their eyes and caused their blindness in
Speaker 1: the first place. So I'm so turned off and grossed
Speaker 1: out with the idea of eye injections. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just such a horrifying thought, and it just makes me
Speaker 1: think of like clockwork, orange or terminator and all cruise. Now,
Speaker 1: I get that, And I was actually thinking the same
Speaker 1: thing earlier when we were talking about the surgeries that
Speaker 1: you know, either stick electrodes or micro chips into the
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all stuff that can make you pretty queasy.
Speaker 1: But after these injections, did the volunteers actually get their
Speaker 1: sight back? They did, And some of them had been
Speaker 1: unable to see even like a hand waving and right
Speaker 1: in front of their face before the procedure, But afterward,
Speaker 1: I mean they were able to read the first six
Speaker 1: lines on a site chart. I mean six lines. That's
Speaker 1: something I think a lot of people couldn't do even
Speaker 1: if they were squinting. And and that's not all either.
Speaker 1: I mean there were some volunteers that were even able
Speaker 1: to make their way through a dimly lit obstacle course.
Speaker 1: And so it's probably a pretty fun day and one
Speaker 1: that you know, this definitely would have been possible without
Speaker 1: this therapy. I mean, it's really miraculous. I I am
Speaker 1: curious though, So, since we were talking about the eye
Speaker 1: brain connection, does this gene therapy affect the brain at all?
Speaker 1: Like it seems like it would have to write because
Speaker 1: I guess like the pathways in the brain aren't actually
Speaker 1: set up to receive visual signals, so how are they
Speaker 1: able to register the ones sent by these new genes.
Speaker 1: Well that's a good point, and the truth is the
Speaker 1: researchers weren't certain of how well the volunteers would be
Speaker 1: able to process the new information that the therapy allowed for.
Speaker 1: And you know, the consensus for a while was that
Speaker 1: there's been this limited window early in life when neurons
Speaker 1: can be trimmed and shaped and reshaped, and you know,
Speaker 1: as time goes on, that plasticity decreases. And most of
Speaker 1: the gene therapy volunteers have been in their twenties at
Speaker 1: the time the procedure, and I think one of them
Speaker 1: was like forty five, So there was definitely no guarantee
Speaker 1: that their neural pathways could be repaired enough to transmit
Speaker 1: those those visual signals. I mean it clearly worked, right,
Speaker 1: I mean they were racing through obstacle courses and zooing
Speaker 1: down eye charts and getting impressive. Oh it definitely isn't
Speaker 1: you know. In fact, the researchers actually gathered the participants
Speaker 1: again two years later and they conducted various brain scans
Speaker 1: just to see how well their neural pathways had adjusted,
Speaker 1: And amazingly, the scans showed that they looked very similar
Speaker 1: to the pathways and people who didn't have any sort
Speaker 1: of vision problems. I mean, it's just incredible when you
Speaker 1: look at that. And according to the lead researchers name
Speaker 1: is man Tzar ashtari Uh, there may be a critical
Speaker 1: window of accelerated brain plasticity, but we've shown that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you lose the capability of restructuring pathways as an adult.
Speaker 1: So I like this idea of old dogs that are
Speaker 1: perfectly capable of learning new tricks. Yeah, well, all right,
Speaker 1: there's one more form of gene therapy that I do
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we get to. But before
Speaker 1: we get into it, let's take a quick break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to part time genius. Okay, well, so what's this
Speaker 1: other kind of gene therapy that you wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: I think you said it's like lawless and a miracle cure.
Speaker 1: Isn't that right? No, I definitely did not say that,
Speaker 1: But actually, in all honesty that this one isn't without
Speaker 1: its drawbacks, just like the other treatments. I mean, all
Speaker 1: of these treatments and advancements do have some drawbacks at
Speaker 1: this point, but at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 1: too cool not to talk about this one, all right. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, have you ever heard of optogenetics? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. Know. Well, optogenetics is typically used in animals,
Speaker 1: and it helps researchers get a better sense of how
Speaker 1: exactly the brain works. And if you think about the
Speaker 1: name and what it implies the technique, it's it's really
Speaker 1: a combination of optics and genetics. So basically, it's a
Speaker 1: way to change the DNA of nerve cells so that
Speaker 1: they can be controlled by light, which sounds super cool,
Speaker 1: but I have no idea what that means. Well, basically,
Speaker 1: it helps researchers illuminate certain parts of the brain and
Speaker 1: then monitor and animals brain behavior after doing that. And
Speaker 1: in the past, optogenetics hasn't been utilized in humans, you know,
Speaker 1: namely because of what it involves. I mean, it normally
Speaker 1: involves attaching a wire to the brain through a hole
Speaker 1: in the head, and for some reason, people just don't
Speaker 1: seem that excited about that. But as we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: I mean, the eye is a pretty handy way to
Speaker 1: access the brain without the need for the power tools
Speaker 1: involved in the other ways. Wait, so what kind of
Speaker 1: light detecting gene are they injecting and and what are
Speaker 1: we trying to do to the brain? Exactly? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this one company. There's a French company
Speaker 1: called gen Site Biologics, and they actually recently got approval
Speaker 1: to start human trials with opti genetics, and they're actually
Speaker 1: gearing up for it right now. I think the target
Speaker 1: is the first quarter of this year, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: And their hope is to restore sight to people with
Speaker 1: retinitis pigmentosa. But here's the really cool part. The gene
Speaker 1: the company is using is derived from a single celled algae, Yes, algae,
Speaker 1: I mean it's actually the gene that the algae uses
Speaker 1: to detect light. So in this human application, the ideas
Speaker 1: that the algae gene will convert the ganglion cells and
Speaker 1: the human eye into these photo receptor cells. So I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but you're actually gonna have to refresh me on what
Speaker 1: ganglion cells are. I'm a little fuzzy on Well. So,
Speaker 1: normally these ganglion cells relate visual information from the eye
Speaker 1: to the brain, but in people with this disorder, this
Speaker 1: retinitis pigment tosa, the cells are actually just too damaged
Speaker 1: in order to function. So so by injecting these light
Speaker 1: detecting cells to fill in for those damage cells, the
Speaker 1: hope is to kind of, you know, restart that conversation
Speaker 1: between the eye and the brain. I just think that's
Speaker 1: so wild to think about. I mean, it's like a
Speaker 1: cure for blindness using genes from a single cell organism
Speaker 1: that that can't see on its own. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: pretty weird. It actually reminds me this Wired article I
Speaker 1: read that it was pointing out how different this kind
Speaker 1: of treatment was compared to the other type of gene
Speaker 1: therapy that you know, we mentioned earlier, and you know,
Speaker 1: as the author put it, a company isn't inserting a
Speaker 1: gene from another human, another mammal, or even another animal,
Speaker 1: but from algae. Forget cross species, this is cross domain.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like it's working out though, right, So
Speaker 1: what kind of vision does this algae gene supply? All? Right, Well,
Speaker 1: this is where we do get into the whole imperfect
Speaker 1: cure thing, because these algae genes would only boost the
Speaker 1: eyes detection of red light. So what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That that means that the new photoreceptors wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to perceive green or blue light, and as a result
Speaker 1: of that, the patients would only be able to see
Speaker 1: in black and white. So it winds up being about
Speaker 1: as useful for treating this form of blindness as the
Speaker 1: bionic argus I I was talking about earlier, since that
Speaker 1: was also limited to black and white. Right, Well, that
Speaker 1: is true, but I think you were saying the argus
Speaker 1: used what like sixty electrodes, and you know, so if
Speaker 1: this algae gene can convert even just ten of the
Speaker 1: eyes retinal ganglion cells into photo receptors, that would actually
Speaker 1: be the equivalent of roughly a hundred thousand electrodes. So
Speaker 1: while the vision granted by this algae gene would would
Speaker 1: still lack color. It's definitely a whole other level in
Speaker 1: terms of clarity. I mean, this would be pretty much
Speaker 1: unprecedented in terms of blindness treatment, which is super impressive.
Speaker 1: But you know, even in trying to keep an even
Speaker 1: keeled approach to the subject, there's one downside to gene
Speaker 1: therapy for blindness that we haven't touched on yet, and
Speaker 1: that's price. So I'm not sure if you saw this,
Speaker 1: but late last year, the first gene therapy in the
Speaker 1: US was approved by the FDA. It's called lux Turna
Speaker 1: and it's designed to treat libres, that form of inherited
Speaker 1: blindness that you mentioned earlier. Yeah, I remember hearing about
Speaker 1: this in December, and it's when we were first starting
Speaker 1: to talk about maybe doing this episode. But but I
Speaker 1: don't think they'd settled on a sticker price. But from
Speaker 1: what you're saying, it sounds like it's on the higher end. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the final price is eighty dollars pur patient. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's definitely on the higher end. That actually makes it
Speaker 1: the most expensive medicine sold in the US. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and if you consider like only a couple of thousand
Speaker 1: people are affected by libres each year, so it's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine that's going to get cheaper fast. But still
Speaker 1: there's no question that people LIKEX Turner would would help.
Speaker 1: I guess they would say it's worth the price. Maybe,
Speaker 1: So That's what I would have said at first, but
Speaker 1: now I'm not so sure. We've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: the show weighing the pros and cons of different treatment
Speaker 1: options and trying to get a sense of how close
Speaker 1: we are to effective cures for blindness. But one thing
Speaker 1: we haven't stopped to consider is whether the people who
Speaker 1: actually live with blindness and other visual impairments whether they
Speaker 1: even want vision. Yeah, and I remember reading, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it was in an Oliver Sacks work years ago,
Speaker 1: just about how overwhelming that experience could be for those
Speaker 1: that suddenly regained vision. And I have to admit, like
Speaker 1: I'd always been under the assumption that, you know, most
Speaker 1: people who were blind, or almost everyone who was blind
Speaker 1: would want to see. But I don't know, do do
Speaker 1: you think that's a safe assumption to make? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: I I read a few accounts from blind people while
Speaker 1: researching that made me think it might not be that
Speaker 1: cut and dry. So in fact, there seems to be
Speaker 1: a good bit of debate within the blind community over
Speaker 1: which treatments or even which potential cures are actually worth
Speaker 1: the hassle. So, for example, some people might only go
Speaker 1: for a treatment if it could deliver full color vision,
Speaker 1: while others would be content with the blurry black and
Speaker 1: vision that you know I mentioned a while back. And
Speaker 1: and also there are also plenty of blind people who
Speaker 1: say they don't care about the prospect of site, and
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that. And again, we have no experience
Speaker 1: like this to be able to even understand it. But
Speaker 1: were you able to get a sense of of why
Speaker 1: that is, maybe there is this article in The Atlantic
Speaker 1: that gave almost a different perspective, and I've got the
Speaker 1: quote here, So the author rights, for some people who
Speaker 1: are blind, particularly if they've been blind since birth, gaining
Speaker 1: site can actually be a bizarre, disruptive experience. People who
Speaker 1: have regained sight, such as through a corneal transplant, report
Speaker 1: being unable to recognize objects until they picked them up
Speaker 1: in their hands, as they've been doing their whole life. Well,
Speaker 1: and you know, so that's something that I really hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about that much before, but it does make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. And I mean, researching new ways to
Speaker 1: cure eye disease is obviously a good thing and worth doing,
Speaker 1: but it's maybe a little naive to assume that all
Speaker 1: blind people would even consider themselves in need of a cure. Definitely,
Speaker 1: And actually there was another good quote in the Atlantic piece.
Speaker 1: So it was from a woman named us Stacy Cervenka,
Speaker 1: who was born blind because our optic nerve hadn't developed.
Speaker 1: And she works as an executive officer for the California
Speaker 1: State Rehab Clinic and her husband, who is blinded by
Speaker 1: a gunshot, also teaches there and he teaches people to
Speaker 1: get around independently anyway. Stacy said, it's not like we've
Speaker 1: been sitting in rocking chairs for decades and we were
Speaker 1: waiting until we can go to the hospital for treatment.
Speaker 1: Blind people who have lives that are as busy and
Speaker 1: chaotic and full as any sided people. Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: that quote. It's definitely something we should we should always remember.
Speaker 1: But alright, Mango, I think you know what time it is.
Speaker 1: Time for the fact off, let's do it. So here's
Speaker 1: a quick one. In Crayola's Top crayon maker, a man
Speaker 1: named Emerson Moser retired after thirty eight years at the job,
Speaker 1: and just before he did, he revealed that he'd been
Speaker 1: color blind the whole time. That's hilarious. I'm curious, though,
Speaker 1: do you know if it affected his job at all?
Speaker 1: I I mean, he made over one point four billion
Speaker 1: crayons and and Crayola exacts. We're all praised for him,
Speaker 1: so I don't think so. Though he did admit to
Speaker 1: double checking his work a lot. And uh. Also, this
Speaker 1: is a cute aside, his his work boots, which were
Speaker 1: ankle high and coated in all these different colors of
Speaker 1: crown drippings from his work days are now on display
Speaker 1: at the Crayola Hall of Fame. It's pretty fun. Well,
Speaker 1: I've got a pretty good one too here. So Ralph Tater,
Speaker 1: who invented cruise control, was actually blind. Now he was
Speaker 1: a genius inventor who was an incredible engineer, but he
Speaker 1: actually got the idea for cruise control when he was
Speaker 1: riding around in the car with his lawyer. And apparently
Speaker 1: the guy was a terrible driver, and as they were
Speaker 1: driving around, he kept breaking and jerking, and so Ralph
Speaker 1: realized there's got to be a better way. I love that.
Speaker 1: So had you heard the Egyptians thought you could actually
Speaker 1: cure blindness by dropping a little bat blood in your eyes.
Speaker 1: They assumed that because bats could see at night, the
Speaker 1: blood might have some superpower. That's not the craziest idea
Speaker 1: in the world. But actually, speaking of bats, have you
Speaker 1: heard about these ultrasonic helmets that allow you to see
Speaker 1: like about So it's called the Sonic Eye, and it's
Speaker 1: still in development, but basically what it does it it
Speaker 1: sends out these ultrasonic chirps and then it catches them
Speaker 1: in these two bat shaped ears. And then you've got
Speaker 1: this processor that slows the sounds down by a factor
Speaker 1: of like twenty or something, and that helps, you know,
Speaker 1: make it audible for the person who's wearing it. But
Speaker 1: the results are actually pretty amazing. So not only can
Speaker 1: the people wearing them navigate on this hike through the forest,
Speaker 1: but they can also decipher when these little changes happen,
Speaker 1: Like you've got a plate that's moved in front of
Speaker 1: them by less than twenty centimeters. They can actually detect that.
Speaker 1: And in the future, scientists expect to reduce the devices
Speaker 1: to look a little bit more like a sporty headband
Speaker 1: than an awkward bat helmet, which I have to me,
Speaker 1: it made me laugh a little bit when they were saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: but don't worry. One day, we'll make it look like
Speaker 1: a sporty headband. Well, I mean, I love that idea
Speaker 1: and that you can actually see a nighttime it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: But that thing did remind me of a little life hack. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is something I actually do. It's when you're getting
Speaker 1: up at night to use the bathroom or whatever. If
Speaker 1: you cut a hand over one eye before you turn
Speaker 1: the lights on, and then keep that eye closed or
Speaker 1: covered until you turn the lights back off, and then
Speaker 1: switch eyes like whichever I a're using it. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: but you'll actually be able to see in the dark
Speaker 1: because the eye you kept closed never actually bothered to
Speaker 1: adjust to the light. All right, Well here's a cool
Speaker 1: one from Johns Hopkins. So did you know that when
Speaker 1: blind people solve math problems, they use the same brain
Speaker 1: areas as sighted people, not surprisingly, but they actually also
Speaker 1: used parts of the brain that others only use for vision.
Speaker 1: So the scientists were stunned to learn that they've basically
Speaker 1: repurposed this part of their brain specifically for math. That's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. So this is what I think you'll like,
Speaker 1: and it comes from pops. I. So apparently transplanting an
Speaker 1: eyeball is really difficult because the optic nerve is super finicky,
Speaker 1: but the way the article puts it, you might not
Speaker 1: need to factor the optic nerve into the equation at all.
Speaker 1: Eyes and perhaps other sensory organs can hook up to
Speaker 1: any available central nervous system PORT and boot right up
Speaker 1: if manipulated properly. So scientists are toughs have actually done this,
Speaker 1: and they've taken blind tadpoles and grafted eyes to their
Speaker 1: tails so that you can actually see from the backsides.
Speaker 1: Oh man, mango. I can't compete with that, especially because
Speaker 1: I know this is the fact that my kids are
Speaker 1: going to remember of some creature being able to see
Speaker 1: with their butts. So yeah, just outpouch something back there.
Speaker 1: Yeah I did say outpout, so I think I deserve
Speaker 1: some bonus points for that, But I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: give you the fact off trophy this week. Congratulations, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. That's it for today's episode. But as always,
Speaker 1: if we've forgotten any great facts, whether it's about today's
Speaker 1: subject or anything you feel like, we should know. We
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. You can email us
Speaker 1: part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com. You
Speaker 1: can always call us on our in fact hot line
Speaker 1: that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit us
Speaker 1: up on Facebook or Twitter. We love hearing from you.
Speaker 1: We've loved hearing all the great questions and suggestions coming
Speaker 1: in from listeners. But that's it for today's episode. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time
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