Cure for blindness 'within five years' Last Updated: 12:01am BST 06/06/2007
Roger Highfield - a real chance of success Pioneering stem cell transplants to restore the sight of people affected by a leading cause of blindness could start within five years, according to a British team which has reported successful human eye cell implants. Table with 2 columns and 2 rows 06/nstem106 What causes the blindness and how it could be cured using stem cells: click to enlarge table end More than 500,000 people in the UK have irreversible blindness caused by macular degeneration. The disease is marked by a progressive loss of central vision due to degeneration of the macula - a pigmented spot at the back of the retina. Now an anonymous American philanthropist, who saw his father go blind, has given a London-led team almost £4 million towards the cost of developing a stem cell therapy, where eye cells from an embryo are used to restore sight. Prof Pete Coffey and Lyndon da Cruz, an eye surgeon, of the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, have teamed up with Prof Peter Andrews, of the University of Sheffield, to conduct trials. advertisement Macromedia Flash Movie Start Embedded Macromedia Flash Movie Macromedia Flash Movie end Mr da Cruz said yesterday: ''Given age- related macular degeneration could affect up to one third of the population by 2070 the potential to create a treatment strategy for this condition is critical and may have a major impact on vision loss in the community.'' The team estimates the stem cell implants could start within five years and eventually become a routine, 45-minute operation. Prof Coffey said: "If it hasn't become routine in about 10 years it would mean we haven't succeeded. It has to be something that's available to large numbers of people." As a trial run for the operations, the team has repaired the vision of patients with macular degeneration with tissue from their own eyes, moving it from the region of the eye responsible for peripheral vision to the macula. The treatment is not initially aimed at the transparent skin of nerve cells that detect light but at an underlying carpet of cells called the retinal pigment epithelium, or RPE. RPE was transplanted by surgeons, without the use of stem cells in an experimental procedure on 12 patients at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, using RPE taken from another site in their own retina. However, replacing RPE in what are long, complex operations is of limited benefit in treating common eye diseases such as macular degeneration. Mr Da Cruz, having transplanted and moved tissue in the eye, has seen more than 25 per cent of patients reporting an improvement in what is otherwise an untreatable disease, demonstrating that cell transplants work in principle. >From stem cells taken from early human embryos, Prof Coffey has found a way to turn them into RPE cells by adding growth factors. The team has successfully tested this method on rats. Prof Alistair Fielder, senior medical adviser for the eye research charity Fight for Sight, said the project "represents a real chance to tackle this untreatable condition and bring hope to many". Join Access India convention: For updates on it visit: http://accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Registration is now open! To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
