Weed says two doctoral classes, lab work and tutoring took up a substantial chunk of his life at first, but now he has gotten into the main focus of his studies at Harvard: genes.

"I spent many hours working with great people who made biological concepts, that are all taught visually, accessible to me," he says. "I experienced everything that you would expect from Harvard students, such as extreme dedication."

Weed says he uses Genetics Computing Group (GCG) software to examine DNA and protein structure, and how one converts to the other. The software allows him to make predictions, such as what a protein might look like at a later stage.

"The software takes the tedious work out of your hands. There is no need to read A, C, T and G over and over again," he says. "The computer does this for you, without mistakes, in a minute. By hand, it would take days to do as well."

Access at Harvard

An important figure in Weed's Harvard experience has been W. Kelley Gardner, the Director of Information Services at the Joslin Diabetes Center in the Medical Area, where a $60,000 computer system provides Weed with Digital hardware and the text-to-speech software called DECTalk.

"I wanted to find a way to have a machine perform analysis and present biological data in a way that Matt can use," says Gardner, who does not work for Harvard. "DECTalk synthesizes speech from text and supports multiple voices."

"With practice, Matt can hear as fast as we sighted individuals can see," he says. "He listens to 480 words per minute--an extraordinary rate for which the brain is thoroughly constructed. The ability is inherent in us all, but not everyone needs to use it."

"The human species adapts when a skill is needed, and so Matt's other senses compensate," he adds. "However, Matt's adaptive adjustment is quite unique and beyond what I have ever seen before."

To interact with the computers, Weed has learned to touch-type and, once his fingers find the home-row, he can conduct his scientific work and respond to e-mail messages.

Although computers continue to open many doors for Weed, he says Harvard's resources are insufficient for his special needs. In particular, he cannot easily access programming knowledge, because of the physical separation of the Medical Area from the Cambridge facilities.

"The biomedical sciences are here in Boston, but computer science is over in Cambridge," Weed says. "The need to travel between two campuses, an arduous task for even sighted individuals, makes learning the basic scientific programming language emacs-LISP impossible."

"I am unable to access science-oriented computing, and cannot get everything I need--data, professors and so on--together so that I can be independent," he adds. "I need to be able to access everything at once in order to make breakthroughs in my work. Only the pieces are there."

The lack of access has led Weed to decide not remain at Harvard to pursue his Ph.D., but to terminate his program after one year with a masters.

This spring, he is taking reading courses, continuing to engage in lab work and working on an independent project, which will culminate in an article that will be published as his masters' thesis. Weed's project consists of library research on the 'Sonic Hedgehog," a molecule related to the patterning of limbs in tetropods.