A 17-year-old whose sight was failing has had his vision improved in a pioneering operation carried out by doctors at Moorfields Eye Hospital. The London researchers used gene therapy to regenerate the dying cells in Stephen Howarth’s right eye. As a result he can now confidently walk alone in darkened rooms and streets for the first time. Stephen is the third person to have the operation, and the researchers expect even better results in future cases. Before the procedure, he could hardly see at all at night and in time he would have lost his sight completely. Confidence His condition was due to a faulty gene that meant that the light-detecting cells at the back of his eye were damaged and slowly degenerating further. But, in a delicate operation, surgeons at Moorfields injected working copies of the gene into the back of Stephen’s eye. After a few months, doctors detected some improvements. But Stephen did not notice these changes until he confidently strode through a dimly-lit maze designed to test his vision. Until then he had kept walking into walls – and it would take him nearly a minute to […]