Another benefit of the eye is its immune privilege. In order to let light in, the eye must remain transparent. As a result, its immune system is dampened so that it won't become inflamed if outside particles get in. This means the eye is much less likely to reject cell transplants, so patients do not need to take immunosuppressant drugs. Henry Klassen, an assistant professor at UC Irvine, is taking advantage of the eye's immune privilege to transplant retinal progenitor cells into the eye to treat retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease affecting about 1 in people that eventually causes the retina to degenerate.
The disease can stem from dozens of different genetic mutations, but the result is the same: RPE cells die off over the course of a few decades, leaving the patient blind by middle age. It is currently incurable. Retinal progenitor cells are baby retinal cells that develop naturally from stem cells and will turn into one of several types of adult retinal cells. When transplanted into a patient's eye, the progenitor cells don't replace the lost retinal cells, but they do secrete proteins and enzymes essential for eye health.
It's that inherent flexibility that gives them a lot of power when they're put in the context of a diseased retina. Klassen's spin-off company, jCyte, sponsored the clinical trial with support from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
The results from the initial study haven't been published yet, but Klassen says he considers it a success. JCyte is now embarking on a phase two trial to assess improvements in vision after the treatment, which will wrap up in Another study generating buzz is a clinical trial in Japan that is the first and, so far, only test of induced pluripotent stem cells iPSC in the eye. In the trial, led by Masayo Takahashi at RIKEN, the scientists transplant retinal pigment epithelial cells created from iPSC into the retinas of patients with age-related macular degeneration.
The first woman to receive the treatment is doing well, and her vision is stable. However, the second patient suffered a swollen retina as a result of the surgery. Despite this recent setback, Takahashi said last week that the trial would continue. Although recent studies have provided patients with renewed hope, the field has not been without mishap.
Most notably, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine last March described three patients who experienced severe side effects after receiving stem cell injections from a Florida clinic to treat age-related macular degeneration. Following the initial article, other reports came out about similar botched treatments.
Lawsuits have been filed against US Stem Cell, the clinic that conducted the procedure, and the FDA sent them a warning letter with a long list of infractions. Ajay Kuriyan, an ophthalmologist and retinal specialist at the University of Rochester who wrote the paper, says that because details about the Florida trial are scarce, it's hard to say why the treatment caused the adverse reaction. His guess is that the stem cells were poorly prepared and not up to clinical standards.
Klassen agrees that small clinics like US Stem Cell do not offer the same caliber of therapy as larger clinical trials. It's just not the same thing," he says. For patients who are interested in joining a trial, Kuriyan listed a few things to watch out for. Third, if the only treatment offered is cell therapy. Despite the recent scandal, Klassen hopes that the success of his trial and others will continue to push the field forward. Emily Oster, Brown economist and bestselling author, stops by the podcast for a robust discussion on the kids' Covid vaccine as well as her expectations for school vaccine and mask policies in The "Making Sense of Science" podcast features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments and the big ethical and societal questions they raise.
This monthly podcast is hosted by journalist Kira Peikoff, founding editor of the award-winning science outlet Leaps. This month, Brown economist and bestselling author Dr. Emily Oster breaks down her decision-making process about why she vaccinated her kids against Covid, and the helpful frameworks other parents can use to think through the decision for their own kids. She also discusses her expectations for school policies regarding vaccines and masks in Listen on Apple. Listen on Spotify.
Listen on Stitcher. Listen on Amazon. Listen on Google. Kira Peikoff is the editor-in-chief of Leaps. Peikoff holds a B. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter KiraPeikoff. The author, an infectious disease physician, pictured with his two daughters who are getting vaccinated against COVID As an infectious disease doctor who took care of hundreds of COVID patients over the past 20 months, I have seen the immediate and long-term consequences of COVID on patients — and on their families.
As a father of two daughters, I have lived through the fear and anxiety of protecting my kids at all cost from the scourges of the pandemic and worried constantly about bringing the virus home from work.
It is imperative that we vaccinate as many children in the community as possible. There are several reasons why. Over the course of the pandemic in the U. S, more than 2 million children aged have become infected, more than have been hospitalized, and more than have died, making COVID one of the top 10 causes of pediatric deaths in this age group over the past year. These include complaints of brain fog, fatigue, trouble breathing, fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, abdominal pain, mood swings and even psychiatric disorders.
Symptoms typically last from weeks in children, with some reporting symptoms that persist for many months. Second, children are increasingly recognized as vectors who can bring infection into the house , potentially transmitting infection to vulnerable household members. Finally, we have all seen the mayhem that results when one child in the classroom becomes infected with COVID and the other students get sent home to quarantine — across the U.
We now have an extraordinarily effective vaccine with more than 90 percent efficacy at preventing symptomatic infection. Vaccinating children will boost our countrywide vaccination rate which is trailing many countries after an early start. Nevertheless, there are still many questions and concerns that parents have as the vaccine gets rolled out. I will address six of them here. Even though this is a relatively new vaccine, the technology is not new. In this case, more experience finding objects through sound will lead to superior performance in blind people when only hearing is used.
We know that the brain learns best about the environment when it can access the same information through multiple senses. This benefits our perception by enhancing accuracy and precision. But if we want to make use of this perceptual benefit in vision rehabilitation, we need to know whether the blind brain actually learned to generate it.
It turns out that this depends on the age a person goes blind. Blindness before the age of eight or nine years influences how touch and hearing are used together to estimate object size. But blindness after this age impairs the ability to enhance perception through multisensory combination. So what does that mean for sensory rehabilitation? If a person has been blind since birth or early childhood, the brain does not know how to process visual information, so vision restoration may not bring much benefit.
If, however, sight was lost later in life, the brain is best wired to perceive its surroundings through vision. In fact, visual information does not have to be taken up through the eyes — it can also reach the brain through our other senses. For example, visual information can be directly translated into sound. Through training, the brain then learns to use this new sensory language , opening up the visual world through the use of another sense. The future prospects of such treatment are truly exciting, but it is likely to be some time before the benefits of this technological breakthrough are widely experienced.
Many people will be fortunate enough not to develop a retinal degeneration disorder, but that does not mean that their eyes are invulnerable to harm. A large amount of visual impairment can be prevented, but what measures can be taken to ensure that this happens? The National Eye Institute NEI suggest a number of simple steps that can be taken to ensure your eyes are as healthy as they can be:.
WHO state that over the past 20 years there has been significant progress in preventing and curing visual impairment in many countries around the world.
In , the World Health Assembly approved the Action Plan for the universal access to eye health. While many people believe that the loss of vision is one of the health problems that could have the biggest impact on everyday life, it is encouraging to think that visual impairment is no longer as absolute a prospect as it once was. Thanks to prosthetics, people who have lost legs can walk around unaided, with most people unaware that they have any limbs missing. It is not too hard to now envisage a future world in which people could be cured of blindness, with any hints of their previous disability remaining invisible.
Researchers in Spain recently used an innovative microelectrode-based brain implant to help a blind person perceive letters and shapes. What does it mean to be legally blind? Read on to learn about the definition, the types of visual impairment, and which government benefits may be…. Researchers have shed light on the mechanisms underlying glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness, which could lead to new treatments for the disease.
A new gene therapy that neutralizes the growth factor that promotes wet AMD is shown to be safe and well tolerated in a small trial of human patients. Breaking research shows how the brains of blind people are naturally rewired to compensate for the lack of visual input, boosting the remaining senses. How far away is a cure for blindness? Written by James McIntosh on March 18, Share on Pinterest Worldwide, there are an estimated 39 million people living with blindness.
Curable and incurable disorders. Restoring and protecting vision with stem cells. Share on Pinterest Macular degeneration is a major cause of partial blindness among people aged over The miracle of retinal prosthesis. Keeping your eyes healthy. Share on Pinterest Regular comprehensive eye exams can detect eye disorders before any vision is lost. Latest news Scientists identify new cause of vascular injury in type 2 diabetes. Adolescent depression: Could school screening help?
Related Coverage.
0コメント