People who suffer from retinitis pigmentosa lose their vision as the light-sensitive cells in their eyes start to break down. But what if they could be implanted with light-sensitive cells taken from other organisms, such as algae or coral? A few years ago, a French ophthalmologist was nearly laughed out of a scientific conference when he proposed this idea. But he didn’t lose heart, and his hunch led to a very important breakthrough.

Link to the video, in which the patient takes a bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket: https://youtu.be/J7a6-46M4qk

The Naked Mole Rat is a podcast by Libo/Libo. Visit our website: https://libolibo.me/  

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This episode was produced by Andrey Borzenko, Ilya Marritz, Danil Astapov, Anastasia Medvedeva and Lika Kremer. Our sound editor is Ildar Fattakhov.