6-Year-Old Boy Who Was Born Blind Gets Vision Partially Restored After ‘Life-Changing’ Gene Therapy

Mar. 15, 2025

Jace before and after life-changing eye surgery.Photo:Courtesy of Moorfields Hospital

Courtesy of Moorfields Hospital

A Connecticut boy is among four children all born with severe childhood blindness who gained “life-changing improvements” to their vision after an experimental trial of gene therapy.

Jace was just 2-months-old when his mother DJ and father Brendan noticed problems with his eyesight. “Around 8 weeks old when babies should start looking at you and smiling, Jace wasn’t doing that yet,” DJ told theBBCin an interview posted on Thursday, Feb. 20.

DJ had a feeling that there was a bigger issue with her son’s vision so she spent the following 10 months doing research and visiting a number of doctors.

“It was a shock,” Brendan said of his son’s diagnosis. “You never think it’s going to happen to you, of course, but there was a lot of comfort and relief to finally find out… because it gave us a way to move forward.”

Jace and his dad Brendan.Courtesy of Moorfields Hospital

Shortly after, DJ and Brendan connected with Michel Michaelides, a consultant eye surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and professor at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. The “chance encounter” with the U.K. retinal specialist led to Jace being selected for the pioneering gene therapy trial.

“We wanted to give him everything we could for him to successfully navigate the world,” Brendan said in apress releasefrom the hospital.

According to Moorfields Eye Hospital, the procedure consists of injecting healthy copies of the defective gene into the back of the eye, very early in life, in order to treat severe forms of the condition.

The experimental surgery was only done in one eye in order to mitigate any potential safety issues.

Jace after the experimental gene therapy.Courtesy of Moorfields Hospital

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!

Jace’s surgery, which he had when he was 2, was quick and “pretty easy,” his mother said. And within a month, the toddler had remarkable improvement in his vision.

“The results are nothing short of spectacular,” Brendan added.

Jace and his mother DJ.Courtesy of Moorfields Hospital

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

It is unclear whether Jace, now 6, will require additional treatment in the future. However, his parents said they feel lucky to have been given the treatment at all.

The results of the new treatment have since been reported in theLancet medical journal, showing the dramatic and “life-changing improvements” to vision from the gene therapy for all four toddlers. Scientists are now exploring means to make the new treatment more widely available.

“We have, for the first time, an effective treatment for the most severe form of childhood blindness, and a potential paradigm shift to treatment at the earliest stages of the disease,” Michaelides said in a statement. “The outcomes for these children are hugely impressive and show the power of gene therapy to change lives.”

source: people.com