Developing therapies for genetic forms of blindness is extremely challenging, in part because they vary so widely, but scientists have now highlighted a target with great promise for treating a range of these conditions. The scientists have highlighted that a specific gene (SARM1) is a key driver in the damage that ultimately leads to impaired vision (and sometimes blindness), and -- in a disease model -- showed that deleting this gene protects vision after a chemical kick-starts the chain of dysfunction that mimics a host of ocular conditions.