'Miracle' cells could cure blindness-- Demi Tomasides, 1st period

This is such a cool article. It talks about a disease called Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) that causes around 15 million cases of blindness just in the US and 30 million in the world. It starts as a black spot in the middle of your line of vision and spreads outwards as it gets progressively worse. AMD kills the layer of cells that nourish the eye's vision center. Professor Pete Coffey has been working on a treatment for the past 8 years. It implants a thin layer of cells behind the retina of each eye on a patch just three millimeters wide. The surgery was performed for the first time on a 60 year old woman suffering from severe AMD in August 2015. Professor Coffey is hesitant to declare success just yet, but says, "I'm pleasantly surprised the cells are surviving to this stage given how nasty (bloody) the environment was."

This is great. This one surgery has the potential to cure 30 million people of blindness. I hope that Coffey can declare success soon, because I'm sure there are a lot of people banking on this treatment. As a synthesis point, this whole thing reminds me of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan. Helen was blind and def, but Annie taught her to get past that and to thrive in the world (I feat I don't think I would be able to make). The 30 million people coping with this blindness probably have learned to live with it, just as Helen did, but I'm sure the treatment would be considered invaluable and would give them an opportunity for a whole new life style where sight is an asset not taken for granted.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/using-stem-cells-to-cure-blindness/?iid=ob_homepage_deskrecommended_pool&iref=obnetwork