Introduction

In 2001, a report in Nature Genetics raised the possibility that a rare, hereditary form of blindness, Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA), might soon have a cure. A team of researchers led by Jean Bennett of the University of Pennsylvania's Scheie Eye Institute had successfully restored vision to three dogs with LCA. According to news stories, the report “electrified” families with the disease; said one mother of an LCA child, “we are bursting at the seams.” Word spread like “wildfire,” according to Bennett, who received hundreds of inquiries from expectant parents.

The next year, the Alliance for Eye and Vision Research and the Foundation Fighting Blindness dispatched a team of researchers to meet with lawmakers during hearings on NIH appropriations. Traveling with them was Lancelot, one of the Briard mix dogs whose blindness had been partially corrected. One member of the research team, Cornell's Gustavo Aguirre, directed lawmakers to note the dog's posture: Lancelot always stood to one side – he favored his right eye because his left had served as the uncorrected experimental control. “If any of the investigators in the study had not received funding from the National Eye Institute/NIH,” Aguirre stated, “this amazing breakthrough would never have come to pass. Without increased funding, much of this promise will languish on the laboratory bench.”

The hearings followed one year on the heels of the first leukemia diagnosis in the Paris X-SCID study, and two years after Jesse Gelsinger's death. In addition to embodying the promise of vision research, Lancelot's eye also projected a favorable image for the embattled field.