Stem Cells Versus Retinal Damage
Forbes notes that Pfizer "is funding the creation of a biotech company in San Diego called EyeCyte, which will develop stem-cell treatments for eye diseases. The company is based on work by Scripps Research Institute ophthalmologist Martin Friedlander, who has pinpointed bone- and blood-marrow stems cells that, in animal experiments, have a remarkable ability to target and repair damaged blood vessels in the eye. Abnormal blood vessels are a key problem in both diabetic eye disease and macular degeneration. In the future, patients with early signs of blood-vessel damage in the eye might go to the doctor in the morning and leave a blood sample. Adult stem cells would be isolated in the lab over the next few hours, and then the patient would come back in the afternoon and get an injection of his own purified stem cells into the eye. That single injection could stave off further blood-vessel damage for years, preserving eyesight that would otherwise be lost."