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Stem Cells Grown From Patient's Arm Used To Replace Retina
BarbaraHudson writes: The Globe and Mail is reporting the success of a procedure to implant a replacement retina grown from cells from the patient's skin. Quoting: "Transplant doctors are stepping gingerly into a new world, one month after a Japanese woman received the first-ever tissue transplant using stem cells that came from her own skin, not an embryo. On Sept. 12, doctors in a Kobe hospital replaced the retina of a 70-year-old woman suffering from macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world. The otherwise routine surgery was radical because scientists had grown the replacement retina in a petri dish, using skin scraped from the patient's arm.
The Japanese woman is fine and her retinal implant remains in place. Researchers around the world are now hoping to test other stem-cell-derived tissues in therapy. Dr. Jeanne Loring from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., expects to get approval within a few years to see whether neurons derived from stem cells can be used to treat Parkinson's disease."
The Japanese woman is fine and her retinal implant remains in place. Researchers around the world are now hoping to test other stem-cell-derived tissues in therapy. Dr. Jeanne Loring from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., expects to get approval within a few years to see whether neurons derived from stem cells can be used to treat Parkinson's disease."
Internet smartguy debunks medical scientists from the room in his mother's house.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
And now the patient shows remarkable hand eye coordination.
No brain, no pain.
1 - You are implying retinal transplants, a 20 year old procedure, are impossible.
2 - You are implying age is somehow encoded in the ADN, which is not correct.
I'm sorry to burst the bubble of all the middle-aged slashdotters, but nothing improves with age.
Emotional well being, does. So does wisdom and experience - you'll learn to snicker at job offers that offer stock options instead of decent pay or the tyical BS from recruiters.
Actually the summary does miss a few things out. This was covered in Japanese TV and they said that it wouldn't restore the woman's sight. It is just a test to prove that the cells can develop the right way and won't be rejected or otherwise fail somehow. Once that is proven actually making them work to restore sight is the next step.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
> I'm sorry to burst the bubble of all the middle-aged slashdotters, but nothing improves with age.
bottle conditioned beer
:I didn't see anything in the article saying the woman could actually see again. The article noted she was " fine"
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If your eyes were OK for the first 50 years, and then you went blind due to retinal disease, what do you care if the replacement "only" lasts another 50 years?
Combine that with this:
Scientists have long been aware of Müller cells (which exist in great abundance in the eye) and have generally assumed that they were responsible for keeping retinal tissue protected and clear of debris. In recent years, however, researchers have reported that these cells sometimes exhibit progenitor cell behavior and re-enter the cell cycle (dividing and differentiating into other type of cells). Progenitor cells are similar to stem cells but are more mature and are more limited in the number of cells types they can become.
... and we might be able to get somewhere.
As for the re-mapping, don't sell the optic nerve and brain short. People can go for years without even noticing the cumulative damage to their eyes.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The last retina lasted 70 years. I'd say that if she is still around and her retinas are her bigest concern after another 70 years she is doing pretty good!
Fantastic achievement! People with visual disabilities might have a real shot now in future generations.
As outlined here, it is the retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cells and/or photo-receptors that are being grown and transplanted here. The RPE cells are the supply source for the photo-receptors and comprise the far rear layer of the retina (the neurons of the retina are supplied by blood vessels at the front which you're looking through right now). The photo-receptors, while technically sensory neurons, don't project very far, so replacing them could conceivably restore sensitivity without disrupting the neural connections of the retina. Growing them with the proper alignment to the optics of the eye might be a challenge, though.
Replacing the whole retina is not yet feasible. The ganglion cells project through the optic nerve all the way to the middle of the brain - you can't just swap these out. The other neurons (amacrine, bipolar, horizontal, etc.) of the retina form very specific types of connections during development, and simply replacing these with new cells won't restore such connections. The RPE cells and photo-receptors are about the only thing that might be replaced to restore some lost sensitivity, and are also the easiest to reach surgically, being near the back.
You do the cast to a character pointer in your original malloc statement.
As for your complaint that the article doesn't say whether she can see now or not, this was a huge step forward. Look at what was involved:
The surgery was only a month ago. Let's observe the patient over the next year to see what else develops.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
http://www.nature.com/news/jap...
"Age-related macular degeneration results from the breakdown of retinal epithelium, a layer of cells that support photoreceptors needed for vision. The procedure Kurimoto performed is unlikely to restore his patient's vision. However, researchers around the world will be watching closely to see whether the cells are able to check the further destruction of the retina while avoiding potential side effects, such as bringing about an immune reaction or inducing cancerous growth."
And this:
http://www.riken-ibri.jp/AMD/e...
"This is a very early-stage form of clinical research, and is intended to assess the safety of this intervention; it is not expected to yield significant improvements in visual acuity or other symptoms in the patients who participate in the study."
Generally the first stage testing a new clinical technique is to make sure that it does not cause harm. That's what they're doing with this test.
More like 30 years.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
How exactly is RP International not a credible source?
They are a fairly well-known charity involved in raising money for the research of eye problems & support of the vision impaired.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Hand for eye?
Ezekiel 23:20
What if we can cure macular degeneration but the cure takes a dedicated team of people 20 days to grow the new cells and then costs $1,000,000 dollars? so a person can see for the last 10 years of life?
When that same $1,000,000 dollars can provide clean water to a village of 200 people?
While it is not a zero sum game what happens when it gets more and more expensive and adds value for less and less of a persons life?
What happens when you can live forever but at a cost of a billion dollars a year?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm going to watch these types of development very closely. I've got the earliest symptoms of macular degeneration, only spotted this early (too early for the retinal thickness measuring laser to definitively measure) due to using astronomical equipment including a hydrogen-alpha scope. Also the fact that I am utterly pedantic about my sight is another factor in my being able to spot the early onset symptoms. :(
The prospect of a valid retinal transplant is something that I would certainly look at in the future if/when I lose the central portions of my vision, and the possibility of sight restoration is something I know I would like the option of.
It's a nasty complaint for a lifelong astronomer that likes extreme sports
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
but what's the point in creating a retina with the same defective DNA?
Another 70 years of functional vision?
And furthermore, is the retina connected to the nerves somehow?
If it goes like other experimental retina transplants, yes.
The brain will cope the same way it does with other changes in the eye. Your retina contains none of the cells that were there when you were a child. Can you see?