Monday May 9, 2016.
A team of Japanese surgeons and geneticists has just achieved a new feat in terms of gene therapy. They succeeded in creating stem cells capable of partially restoring a patient’s sight, from simple skin cells!
Skin cells used to restore a sick person’s sight
The cells in question were taken from his arm. A small square of skin 4 mm in diameter! But this small patch of skin was then cultivated, then reprogrammed into immature stem cells, those which are not yet intended for a specific function.
The Japanese researchers then implanted these stem cells in the eye of a 70-year-old woman with macular degeneration (AMD). They waited two years before communicating the results of their experiment.
AMD: the patient has partially recovered her sight
The stem cells implanted in the patient’s eye are determined, and have reconstituted part of the epithelium of the retina. AMD in fact gradually destroys the retina, located at the back of the eye and on which images are formed, starting from the center. This causes a “black hole” in the vision, which gets bigger over time, and becomes more and more disabling. In the case of this experiment, not only did the patient’s immune system not reject the stem cell transplant, but her eyesight improved significantly.
Other experiments intended to improve sight, using stem cells, have also given fairly convincing results in the world, which gives hope that this technique may become not only experimental, but commonplace, in a few years.
Read also: Have good eyesight longer
