Indian Express, Agencies : London, Scientists claim to have successfully
healed the damage caused to glaucoma in rats, a breakthrough they say could lead to an effective treatment for one of the most common causes of blindness in humans in just a few years. Researchers at University College London who carried out this landmark research hoped that their new stem cell therapy could be tested on humans by 2015 and in widespread use four years later.
PAGE: 12 | Single Page Format
Glaucoma affects about 70 million people around the world and one in 10 sufferers go blind because of late diagnosis, drugs not working or the disease being particularly severe at present, the Daily Mail reported. In the study, the researchers took healthy stem cells – "master" cells capable of turning into other types of cell and widely seen as a repair kit for the body -- from human eyes. Using a cocktail of chemicals, they turned them into retinal ganglion cells that die in glaucoma and then injected those into the eyes of rats with glaucoma-like damage. After just four weeks, the cells had connected with existing nerve cells, and the animals' eyes worked 50 per cent better, the researches reported in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine. Study author Dr Astrid Limb said: "Although this research is still a long way from the clinic, it is a significant step towards our ultimate goal of finding a cure for glaucoma and other related conditions. "The human eye is actually very efficient. We can still have fairly good vision with very few functioning retinal nerve cells, which is why many glaucoma patients don't show symptoms until it is too late to treat the underlying cause of their vision loss. Source: Indian Express
