Montrose Boy Hopes Gene Therapy Can Prolong Blindness [VIDEO]
A Montrose family whose son is going blind is hoping gene therapy can help 6-year-old Zion Grant retain his vision a little longer.
Daisy Dodds tells WJRT her son was born with a genetic condition called Leber's congenital amaurosis. She noticed that he was struggling to see early on.
"Basically when he was three months old, we noticed he was not tracking," she said. "He was my fourth boy. I mean, what the heck? I can't get him to look at me."
Dodds says that although they're preparing for Zion to go completely blind, a new therapy called Luxterna was just approved by the FDA and Zion was the first patient to receive it at the University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital. Although the gene therapy may not prevent Zion from losing his sight, it may prolong it.
"They took good DNA and put it in his eye to take over for the bad DNA," Dodds said. "So it was a synthetic that they made and put in there and that's supposed to take over, but eventually the bad will take back over again."
There's no guarantee that the treatment will work, Dodds remains hopeful.
"If it don't work, it wasn't meant to be. God's got plans for him, that's what I figured."