Gene treatment helps
blind resident

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - An Albuquerque woman has been partially blind since before she could walk, and now scientific breakthroughs are shedding some light on a life that was headed for darkness.

When Alisha Bacocinni was only 1-year-old, her mother never thought it was her daughter's DNA that was causing her blindness.

Back then it was unheard of to correct a bad gene, but now Bacocinni is 20 and said she has proof it can happen.

Imagine seeing life through dim and blurry lenses. That's been Bacocinni's life for the past 19 years.

"The darker it is, I can't see at all," she said.

When she was 11 months old, doctors told her mother that she was going blind, and there was nothing they could do.

Bacocinni's mother refused the prognosis and began a two decade search for hope.

"My mother is very strong, I kind of take after her," Bacocinni said.

The searching mom stumbled upon an internet video and talked her daughter into getting genetic testing.

When Bacocinni found out that she had LCA, a genetic disorder that causes onset blindness in children, she traveled to a children's hospital in Philadelphia.

"When I went there, I thought we would be dealing with med students and a lab rat in a way," she said.

In the hospital, Bacocinni found a molecular geneticist and a retinal surgeon who specialize in gene therapy to correct blindness.

"They took what I was missing and they grew what I was missing in a Petri dish," she said.

They then injected the 'good' DNA into the back of Bacocinni's right eye.

"I had to lay on my back for 24 hours so it could set in the retina, hoping that it would connect to each cell and regrow it," she said.

Eight months later, Bacocinni said that her peripheral vision is improving.

"I was actually vacuuming and I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought I was crazy," Bacocinni said. "It turned out to be my elbow, which I've never been able to see."

The procedure has not been done to her left eye just yet.

"Maybe when it's FDA approved and everything's fine, done and dandy, they'll do the other eye," Bacocinni said.

One set back for Alisha Bacocinni is her age; the younger the patient, the greater the chance of reversing the blindness.

As she's aged, the connection between her eye and brain may not function as well as it used to.

Bacocinni said that even if her vision is not fully restored, she's sure her findings will shed light on a cure for blindness.