Tag Archives: stem cell therapy

vision restoration stem cells

Treating Blindness: Vision Restoration w/ Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cells and vision restoration – “I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see” – Amazing Grace

jesus blind man vision

trust me, I’m the Messiah

What could be a more powerful part of how we define ourselves and our world than our eyesight? You can imagine how losing your vision would profoundly change your very perception of the world.

The idea of restoring sight to the blind, literally and metaphorically, has fascinated us for eons. While Jesus used good old-fashioned spit and dirt to heal the blind, scientists now see promise in restoring vision with stem cell therapy.

Macular degeneration

Last year scientists successfully restored sight to a blind person who suffered from a disease called macular degeneration, which is the most common cause of vision loss in older adults. Macular degeneration affects our central vision, which is crucial to everyday tasks like driving or reading a book. The disease can progress slowly, or rapid vision loss, and there are currently no treatment options available for age-related macular degeneration.

How can you treat blindness or restore vision with stem cells?

In this type of stem cell therapy, scientists inject about 3 drops of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells grown from embryonic stem cells under a patient’s retina, which is detached for the procedure.

The RPE cells helped to repair and replace damaged photo-receptors in the retina which are vital to eyesight and light detection and pass information to the brain.

The Boston-based company, Advanced Cell Technology, which performed the procedure have yet to publish complete date from the trials, but plan on moving forward with advanced trials with dozens of participants in the near future.

If proven to be safe and effective, you can imagine the promise that stem cell treatments could provide to restore vision, including the nearly 200 million older adults who suffer from macular degeneration.


Also of interest: stem cells and vision restoration:

Dog Receives Stem Cell Therapy for Arthritis

dog receives stem cell therapy

Sam the Border Collie

Dog Receives Stem Cell Therapy for Arthritis – Sam, a 12 year old border collie and champion show dog from Memphis, recently received the first same-day stem cell therapy for dogs in the state of Georgia. The stem cell therapy was performed in an effort to relieve Sam’s pain and inflammation that he suffers due to arthritis.

The stem cell therapy procedure, which cost about $3000, involved harvesting stem cells from Sam’s own fat, processing them, and then injecting them back into his arthritic joints. Stem cells take on the functions of other cells in the body, and have the capacity to rebuild and repair diseased or damaged tissue.  In this case, the stem cells are intended to interrupt the inflammatory cascade in Sam’s joints, thereby taking away the pain.

The “same-day” nature of the dog’s stem cell therapy is important, as in the past the procedure would have sent the cells to a lab in California for processing, taking 3 to 5 days. This amount of time would surely kill a number of the stem cells, and cause other stem cells to lose their effectiveness.

The Stem cell therapy for arthritis performed on Sam is expected to show results in a few weeks. The obvious hope with stem cell therapy such as this, is its tremendous promise with similar conditions like arthritis in humans.

Full story and video from Fox 5 in Atlanta

Stem Cell Therapy for Arthritis in Dogs