Stem Cells Give the Gift of Sight
The first patients to undergo medical treatment from embryonic stem cells are healthy and improving, according to a report on Monday.
The trailblazers, both women, had suffered from common forms of degenerative blindness and were unable to see well enough to read an eye chart or drive. Just a week after having embryonic stem cells injected into their eyes, the improvements were drastic: one patient, a 51-year-old legally blind graphic designer, reported seeing color and contrast and was able to read her watch and thread a needle for the first time in years.
The history-making clinical trial is the brainchild of Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology, and ophthalmic surgeon Steven Schwartz of UCLA. While the patients still need to be tracked for a long period to ensure their safety—the mutable nature of stem cells means healthy cells can turn into tumor cells—researchers are cautiously optimistic that this kind of therapy can at least slow down or arrest vision loss.
"The fact that we're seeing measurable improvements in their vision, persisting for more than four months, is a bonus," Lanza said in an interview with Reuters.
For years, the controversy over stem cell research centered on one question: should we be more interested in potential cures or potential lives? Opponents balked at the callous use of days-old embryos, created by in vitro fertilization and donated by parents before being mined for cells and discarded. Meanwhile, proponents hailed the treatment as medicine's magic bullet, capable of re-creating and repairing any of the body's organs and tissues regardless of disease, injury, or genetic fate.
The debate, however, may be coming to a close. In 2007, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison were able to transform ordinary human skin cells into batches of IPS ("induced pluripotent stem") cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells without using cloning technology or embryos. Although their use is still years away, these reprogrammed cells pose no threat of immune rejection as they come from the patient's own body and might hold the key to ending the political and ethical debate.
"This work represents a tremendous scientific milestone—the biological equivalent of the Wright Brothers' first airplane," said Lanza to Reuters. "It's not practical to use right now, but it might be in a few years. This is truly the Holy Grail—to be able to take a few cells from a patient—say a cheek swab or few skin cells—and turn them into stem cells in the laboratory."
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