Stem cells used to help cure sight loss
COATING a common contact lens with stem cells could help restore a person's sight, Australian scientists have found.
University of New South Wales medical researchers used the technique to treat the damaged corneas of three patients, all of whose vision improved within weeks of the groundbreaking procedure.
--
Stem cells were harvested from the eyes of each patient and then cultured inside a contact lens, which was then stuck onto a damaged cornea in a "transplant'' of regenerative cells.
"The procedure is totally simple and cheap,'' said the university's Dr Nick Di Girolamo.
"Unlike other techniques ... there's no suturing, there is no major operation, all that's involved is harvesting a minute amount - less than a millimetre - of tissue from the ocular surface.''
The lens stayed on for 10 days allowing stem cells to change their form, colonise and repair the cornea.
With so many successes from adult stem cells, I can not understand why any scientist or researcher would want to get entangled with the moral quagmire of embryonic stem research
Posted by Jill Fallon at June 3, 2009 8:14 AM | Permalink