Jay Neitz
Born	John Francis Neitz 30 April 1953(1953-04-30) Choteau, Montana, United States
Residence	Seattle, Washington
Nationality	American
Fields	Color Vision Neuroscience Molecular Genetics Psychology Psychophysics
Institutions	University of Washington
Alma mater	University of California, Santa Barbara
Known for	Creating the cure for color blindness

Jay Neitz is professor of ophthalmology and a renowned color vision researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington in the United States.

Contents 1 Established that each type of cone increases the numbers of colors an organism can see by a factor of one hundred 2 Curing color blindness in monkeys by gene therapy 3 Potential for curing color blindness in humans 4 Possibility of turning human trichromats into tetrachromats 5 Evolutionary appearance of vision 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Established that each type of cone increases the numbers of colors an organism can see by a factor of one hundred

According to Jay Neitz, each of the three standard color-detecting cones in the retina – blue, green and red -- can pick up about 100 different gradations of color. But the brain can combine those variations exponentially, multiplying each new variety of cone by 100, so that the average human can distinguish about one million different hues.^[1][2]

This means that a monochromat can see 100 different colors, a dichromat can see 10,000 difference colors, a trichromat can see 1,000,000 different colors, a tetrachromat can see 100,000,000 different colors, and a pentachromat can see 10,000,000,000 different colors.^[2]

[edit] Curing color blindness in monkeys by gene therapy

Neitz and his wife Maureen Neitz, Ph.D., a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington and senior author of the study, began training in 1999 two dichromatic squirrel monkeys named Dalton and Sam.

About five weeks after the gene therapy treatment, the monkeys began to acquire trichromatic color vision, almost as if it occurred overnight.

"Nothing happened for the first 20 weeks," Neitz said. "But we knew right away when it began to work. It was if they woke up and saw these new colors. The treated animals unquestionably responded to colors that had been invisible to them."

It took more than a year and a half to test the monkeys' ability to discern 16 hues, with some of the hues varying as much as 11-fold in intensity.^[3][4]

[edit] Potential for curing color blindness in humans

"The major thrust of the study is you can ameliorate if not cure color blindness with gene therapy," said Gerald H. Jacobs, Ph.D., a research professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the research. "There are still questions about safety, but in these monkeys at least, there were no untoward effects. Those who are motivated to ameliorate their color defect might take some hope from the findings.

"This is also another example of how utterly plastic the visual system is to change," Jacobs said. "The nervous system can extract information from alterations to photopigments and make use of it almost instantaneously." ^[3]

[edit] Possibility of turning human trichromats into tetrachromats

According to Jay Neitz, “If the neural circuits for color vision are sufficiently plastic, it may be possible to use gene therapy to replace missing photopigments in the eyes of color blind humans. Furthermore, if the neural circuits can handle even higher dimensions of color vision that could come from artificially adding a fourth cone type, it is possible that gene therapy could also be used to extend normal human color vision. From witnessing how strongly people are driven to have a monitor that can output the highest amount of color information, we expect that if there were not associated risks, a therapy for color blindness would be widely adopted. Would trichromats have their vision expanded to tetrachromacy if a safe procedure were readily available?” ^[2]

[edit] Evolutionary appearance of vision

According to Neitz, “The first appearance of the photoreceptive structures that were the precursors to the earliest eyes probably appeared between about 800 and 1100 million years ago (MYA).” ^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ Mark Roth (September 13, 2006). "Some women who are tetrachromats may see 100,000,000 colors, thanks to their genes". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721190-114.stm. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} "Color Vision:Almost Reason for Having Eyes" by Jay Neitz, Joseph Carroll, and Maureen Neitz Optics & Photonics News January 2001 1047-6938/01/01/0026/8- Optical Society of America
3. ^ ^{a b} Scientists Cure Color Blindness in Monkeys—Science News Daily September 16, 2009:
4. ^ Gene Therapy Cures Color Blind Monkeys Wired.com September 16, 2009:

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jay Neitz

• Neitz Lab Website