Color blindness prevents over 10 million Americans from accurately distinguishing among certain primary colors, and at present there is no treatment or cure. The genetic disorder stems from a mutation on the X chromosome. Not only can it cause serious complications in everyday life, making tasks such as night driving more difficult, but it can also prevent people from pursuing certain career paths, such as aviation and electrical work. In early 2015, the medical research startup Avalanche Biotechnologies partnered with the University of Washington to improve upon a new gene therapy technique originally developed by Jay and Maureen Neitz, the lead researchers at the university’s Neitz Color Vision Lab. The couple has dedicated decades to advancing human health, and in 2009, they succeeded in curing color blindness in squirrel monkeys by surgically introducing new genes into the retina cells responsible for facilitating color vision. The team was eager to use their findings to help correct human vision, but the risk associated with their early-stage technique necessitated the development of a nonsurgical approach. In 2012, Jay and Maureen Neitz met Avalanche founder and then CEO Thomas Chalberg at a scientific conference. Dr. Chalberg’s firm had recently begun to optimize and commercialize a nonsurgical technique allowing for the delivery of genes via injection into the eye’s gelatinous vitreous layer. The three immediately set about collaborating to develop a genetic therapy for color blindness.
In 2015, Avalanche Biotechnologies, Inc., announced a partnership with the University of Washington in Seattle to develop genetically based treatments for color blindness. Using its proprietary platform, Ocular BioFactory, the Bay Area company collaborated with the university to explore innovations in the treatment of red-green color blindness, often categorized as CVD, or color vision deficiency. To further the project, two color vision experts from the university were scheduled to join the company’s scientific advisory panel. Avalanche also established a public education website, ColorVisionAwareness.com. The academic-corporate partnership sought to expand on UW research on gene therapies for color blindness, already detailed in a peer-reviewed article in the scientific publication Nature.About 10 million Americans are affected by color blindness, with males far outnumbering females. In fact, about 8 percent of males exhibit some form of color vision deficiency. Avalanche’s innovative BioFactory technology makes it possible to specifically target the human retina to deliver genetically modified virus components, which offer the opportunity to pioneer in the treatment of color blindness and other ophthalmologic conditions.
Scientific advancements are helping people with colorblindness to see the world more vividly.Researchers are working on several fronts to combat color blindness, a genetic condition that primarily affects men, reducing color vision to as few as two colors. People with colorblindness typically have photopigments in their eyes that are less sensitive to certain colors and cannot translate those hues to the brain. Husband-and-wife researchers Jay and Maureen Neitz of the University of Washington have used retinal surgery and gene therapy to treat color blindness in squirrel monkeys. Their method, which is being developed for humans as the result of a partnership with the company Adverum (formerly Avalanche Biotechnologies), replaces a defective gene with one that functions correctly. Currently, there are no treatments available to help people with color blindness. Although some claim that spectacles can help, they have been tested in clinical trials, and no available data supports their use.
