translated from Spanish: They’re trying to restore a man’s vision using genetic editing.

A revolutionary gene editing technique was first used within the body of a patient born with hereditary blindness in order to try to get his sight back. The results will be known in a few months. What was done was injecting harmless viruses with the ability to synthesize the CRISPR-Cas9 tool into the eye of the individual who volunteered. This is the first time the novel gene editing technique has been used to modify the human genome in vivo. We’ll have to wait another two or three months to see if his vision is actually restored.” We are potentially helping to usher in an era of genetic editing for therapeutic use that could have an impact on many aspects of medicine,” said Eric Pierce, professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Retina at Massachusetts Institute of Eye and Ear. In the other attempts made so far to use CRISPR to treat genetic pathologies in humans, the researchers operated on the cells outside the patients’ bodies and then re-injected them. In this case, the editing was made directly into the eye of the patient, who suffers from congenital amaurosis of Leber, a rare genetic disease that ends up blinding those who suffer from it.” Functionally, they’re blind. We feel really optimistic that this genetic edition with CRISPR directly on the patient may have a good chance of being effective,” Pierce said.

Original source in Spanish