university of tubingen and carla shatz, stanford university school of medicine and eric kandel, columbia university. i begin with eric, giving an overview of our subject tonight. eric. >> charlie, the last program we did was new approaches in the treatment of deafness. tonight it's new approaches in the treatment of blindness. as in the case of deafness blindness is not a life-threatening situation but it's tremendously disabling and in some ways more disabling than deafness because as you pointed out, there are a number of very important blindness conditions for which there is no treatment. now, why is that so? unlike deafness, the sensory organ of the vision, the rete any, which lines the inside surface of the eye, that is the most complex sense organ that we have. in fact it's not a peripheral organ.

carla shatz is the leader of the study of the visual system and my friend sandy here is amazing. he as you pointed out, is a college undergraduate, had a severe case of glaucoma for which he became blind and he will tell us what it's like to be blind. but the amazing thing to me about sandy is, despite the fact he has this tremendous handicap, he's a remarkable human being. he's had a rich happy, productive life. he's invented things and now recently has begun to think of how he can help other people who are blind to make their life better. >> charlie: sandy great to have you at the table. talk to us about becoming blind and the whole sense of the journey for you. >> well, even after 50 years i can still feel what it was when i went blind. for many months i had declining vision. my mother and i went to see a glaucoma specialist. he examined me and turns to me with my mother in the room and says well, son, you're going to be blind tomorrow. i guess that was my moment, and i think there is not a moment that occurs in just -- i think there is a moment that occurs in just about every