Stem cell breakthrough restores eyesight in blind rabbits.

Scientists have been able to restore vision in blind rabbits by creating eye tissue from human stem cells, a development that could lead to human trials to help restore vision within the next two years. Researchers from the Cardiff University and Osaka University in Japan collaborated to grow multiple different cells similar to those found in the eye. Cells they created to be similar to cells in the cornea were able to surgically repair the front of the eye in the blind rabbits. The scientists behind the work say the breakthrough could lead to clinical human trials of anterior eye transplantation to restore loss of damaged vision. Andrew Quantock from Cardiff University, who coauthored the work, explained that the research published in the journal Nature shows that human stem cells are able to take on the characteristics of the cornea, lens and retina. "We've been using human iPS cells -- which are induced pluripotent stem cells -- growing them in a 2D culture dish. Spontaneously the cells, after several weeks, created four zones on their own," Quantock told WIRED. "Each zone has the molecular characteristics of a different part of the eye." "We took cells from the third zone, which most looks like the corneal epithelium, and grew those further out before transferring them onto the animal model, which was functional and worked." The scientists were able to show that the corneal cells could be cultivated and transplanted onto the eyes of "rabbits with experimentally induced blindness" to repair the front of the eye. At present 4,000 corneal grafts are performed by the NHS each year. However these rely on human organ donation, although some human patients in the UK have received stem cell treatments to save their eyesight.More