Scientists Grow New Eyes (In Tadpoles)

MagnetDroid writes "Michael Zuber and his colleagues from SUNY Upstate Medical University have shown how to regrow frogs eyes using stem cells. Zuber's team genetically engineered the stem cells to express transcription factors that regulate eye development and, when they transplanted them into frog embryos that had had one eye removed, they regrew into fully functioning tadpole eyes. Unfortunately, the same trick doesn't work in mammals but Zuber hopes to find chemicals that activate the transcription factors without genetic engineering and says this might one day lead to new treatments for diseases linked to cell loss in the retina."