Promising stem cell approach to correct photoreceptor cell degeneration, which causes visual decline and blindness

A preclinical study using stem cells to produce progenitor photoreceptor cells—light-detecting cells found in the eye—and then transplanting these into experimental models of damaged retinas has resulted in significant vision recovery. This finding, by scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School, the Singapore Eye Research Institute and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, marks a first step toward potentially restoring vision in eye diseases characterized by photoreceptor loss. The research is published in the journal Molecular Therapy.