> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://cadenceletters.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What If You Live to 200, but Cannot See? - URL: https://cadenceletters.com/en/what-if-you-live-to-200-but-cannot-see/ - Published: 2026-10-14T09:33:21.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-14T09:33:21.000Z - Description: Why, after ten years in crypto, I’m turning to AI to help fix my eyes - Author: Ryan Sungho Kim - Tags: en, bio, longevity, #pair-eye-health-20261013 Manuscript date: Oct 13, 2026 · @Sungho Kim *Why, after ten years in crypto, I’m turning to AI to help fix my eyes* New York, 2018\. I was at a concert when something flew out of nowhere and hit my right eye. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. A few years later, I had become someone who couldn’t take off his sunglasses, even indoors. The lens in my right eye had turned cloudy and white, making even the office lights painfully bright. I sat through meetings and dinners wearing sunglasses. ## My Eyes Were a Mess I was born with weak eyes. Like many people of my generation, I spent much of my childhood playing computer games, and my nearsightedness worsened quickly. My eyes tired easily, so I couldn’t read for long. Instead, I threw myself into math, sports, and music, things that required less reading. Looking back, even the way I learned was shaped by my eyes. In 2009, I had ICL surgery, which places a lens inside the eye. It was groundbreaking technology at the time, and immediately afterward, the world looked so clear it felt new. That clarity ended nine years later in New York. After that incident, a cataract began to develop in my right eye. It progressed rapidly over the next few years, and in 2023, I finally had surgery. Then, not long ago, I learned that my left eye had both glaucoma and a cataract. My eyes were a mess. ## The One Thing That Didn’t Change My eyes weren’t the only thing in bad shape. Between endless business trips, meetings, and dinners, I had run my body into the ground, too. In May 2025, I decided I couldn’t keep living this way. I started swimming every day, then added running and tennis. I began strength training and, in early 2026, interval training as well. My body responded to the work. I became fit enough to finish a HYROX race, and my body fat dropped to around 10%. For the first time, I felt confident in my body. But one thing never changed. No amount of exercise could restore my eyes. With cataracts, surgery can replace the eye’s lens with an artificial one. Glaucoma is different. It is a disease in which the optic nerve gradually dies, and today’s medicine cannot bring back what has been lost. All we can do is lower eye pressure to slow its progression. Taking good care of my body might let me live a longer, healthier life. But even if I lived longer, would I still be able to see the things I love? That question frightened me. ## I’ve Seen the Impossible Become Infrastructure My career changed every three years. Three years in semiconductor design, three years building a startup, three years as a data scientist. In 2016, I began investing in crypto with Simon Kim, a longtime close friend from high school. In March 2018, I co-founded Hashed. Ten years have passed since I first entered crypto. Over those ten years, I had a front-row seat as blockchain went from something people dismissed as a toy to financial infrastructure. What I learned was that real infrastructure takes much longer to build than you expect. Then, starting last year, my attention, along with that of everyone around me, shifted to AI. Its impact felt far greater than blockchain’s. AI was a tool that could dramatically expand what one person could do. AI lowers the cost of failure. When building and trying things have become this much cheaper, the greatest opportunity cost may be not trying at all. But biology is different from code. AI has lowered the cost of learning, but not the cost of validation. Testing things in cells and in people is still slow, exacting work. Even so, change is happening fast. After transforming protein structure prediction with AlphaFold, Demis Hassabis founded Isomorphic Labs to design new drugs with AI. Anthropic has released Claude Science for scientists. The dry lab, where researchers develop hypotheses and design experiments on computers before entering a physical lab, is quickly becoming a reality. As recently as last year, it would have been reckless for someone like me, with no background in biology or medicine, to say I was going to take on this problem. Now, at least, I can see where to begin. ## Eye Research Is Further Along Than I Thought The biggest surprise when I began learning was that the eye is actually at the forefront of advanced medicine. The eye has been the site of important breakthroughs in gene therapy. Luxturna, a treatment for an inherited retinal disease approved by the FDA in 2017, was the first gene therapy in the United States administered directly to treat a disease caused by a specific genetic defect. This year, the researchers behind it received the Breakthrough Prize, and their work has paved the way for more than 140 gene therapy clinical trials targeting retinal diseases. ([Award announcement](https://www.aabb.org/news-resources/news/article/2026/04/22/gene-therapy-researchers-awarded-breakthrough-prize-for-inherited-blindness-treatment?ref=cadenceletters.com)) Something even more dramatic is happening in glaucoma research. In 2020, a team at Harvard Medical School restored vision lost to glaucoma in mice by returning their optic nerve cells to a more youthful state. Then, in June of this year, Life Biosciences announced that it had administered ER-100, a treatment candidate based on the same principle, to its first patient. Reprogramming technology designed to reverse cellular aging has entered human trials, and glaucoma is one of its targets. In the first data the company released in early October, no serious adverse events were reported during 56 days of observation in three patients with glaucoma. Progression to the next dose level was also recommended. It is too early to say anything about efficacy. But research into reversing aging and research into repairing the eye are meeting right here, right now. ([Research overview](https://hsci.harvard.edu/news/reversing-aging-eye?ref=cadenceletters.com), [Trial results](https://www.lifebiosciences.com/life-biosciences-announces-first-in-human-data-from-ongoing-phase-1-trial-evaluating-er-100-in-optic-neuropathies/?ref=cadenceletters.com)) No treatment has yet reversed glaucoma in humans. But a path is beginning to emerge. I want to walk it myself. ## This Isn’t Just My Problem Lately, I’ve realized that more people around me have glaucoma than I had expected. Nearsightedness increases the risk of glaucoma. If you wear glasses and spend all day looking at a monitor, this may be closer to home than you think. What is more frightening is that most glaucoma causes no pain. Because the visual field gradually narrows from the edges, the disease is often already advanced by the time someone notices. That’s why, these days, I encourage people around me to see an eye doctor and have their eye pressure and optic nerves checked at least once. ## What I’ll Do Here This blog will document a journey that begins with my own eyes and expands into eye health more broadly, longevity, and biotech. - I’ll meet researchers, doctors, and founders working at the forefront of eye health, longevity, and biotech, and share those conversations. - I’ll read the latest papers with AI and translate them into language anyone can understand. - I’ll document, in detail, the process of building a business in this field myself. I am neither a doctor nor a scientist. If I get something wrong, please tell me. ## One Last Thing This is a journey to fix my own eyes. But I hope that whatever I find along the way will also reach the many people living with the same problems. What can today’s treatments preserve, and what can they still not restore? Starting with the next post, I’ll explore those boundaries, one by one.