LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- <\/p>\n
In bright daylight, 10-year-old Mark Devoe has no trouble seeing his friends. But inside or even in the shade, Mark's eyes sometimes don't work. <\/p>\n
\"I have trouble seeing like, trees, when the road ends, and when there's like a drop there,\" said Mark. <\/p>\n
At age 6, Mark's doctors diagnosed him with the genetic condition choroideremia, which causes people to progressively lose vision until they are completely blind. <\/p>\n
\"I don't know what it's like to live in darkness, but I've seen it,\" said Susan Devoe, Mark's mother. <\/p>\n
Susan is a carrier of the blindness gene. Mark's grandfather has the condition. <\/p>\n
\"Watching my father go blind was devastating,\" said Susan. \"I was a little girl. You know, you count on daddy to do things, and daddy couldn't do them.\" <\/p>\n
Dr. Jean Bennett is one of two U.S. researchers preparing to test a gene therapy for choroideremia in humans. <\/p>\n
\"I think gene therapy holds a huge promise for developing treatments for blinding diseases,\" said Bennett. <\/p>\n
Researchers will use a virus carrying a small choroideremia gene and inject the virus just under the retina. The gene should begin to work in a few weeks. <\/p>\n
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Read more: <\/p>\n
Gene treatment promising in fight against degenerative blindness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- In bright daylight, 10-year-old Mark Devoe has no trouble seeing his friends. But inside or even in the shade, Mark's eyes sometimes don't work Continue reading