Losing (or not having at all from birth) the ability to see is very similar not to life, but to sheer torment. After all, a person loses one of the most important sense organs. Therefore, scientists have been conducting research for a very long time with the aim of helping people regain their lost sight. And recently, a group of researchers from the United States managed to isolate a special substance from algae that can help people regain the ability to see.
The fact is that some algae, in particular Arabidopsis thaliana, have a special light-sensitive eye, with which the plant determines the level of illumination and allows the algae to move towards the light in order to start the process of photosynthesis and receive nutrition. The protein ChR2 is responsible for the functioning of the eye. In fact, this protein is far from new. It was first isolated back in the early 2000s, and since the middle of the 2000s has been used in optogenetics to study the work of nerve cells and their reactions to each other.
Last year, scientists isolated the ChR2 protein in its purest form and began research. It turned out that it can act as a factor of chromatin remodeling (chromosome substance, which is a complex of DNA, RNA and proteins), and also regulate the biosynthesis of microRNA. Thus, it is possible to achieve "cell regeneration from the inside". Moreover, the introduction of ChR2 with a thin needle into the retina of a patient who has lost sight due to retinitis pigmentosa allows to stop this process and even reverse it. As tests have shown, it is impossible to completely restore vision at this stage, but the ability to distinguish the contours of objects and the outlines of objects returns to blind people, and the disease does not progress further.
Vladimir Kuznetsov