MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Abstract:

Retinal degenerative diseases currently have no cure and can only be managed by ophthalmologists. However, current research in stem cell therapies is emerging to change this fact for the patients who suffer from such diseases. This paper will focus on the efficacy and safety of stem cell treatments as seen in clinical trials to treat three retinal diseases: Stargardt’s Disease, Age-Related Macular Degeneration, and Retinitis Pigmentosa. In all cases, administration of stem cell treatment to human retinas (with induced Pluripotent Stem Cells or human Embryonic Stem Cells) needs to be refined to maximize the increase in visual acuity for patients. A brief overview will be given at the end of this paper of laboratory research in stem cells that has implications for the treatment of retinal diseases. This includes new understandings of the effects of maturity of the stem cells introduced to a patient retina and the effects of immune suppression on the integration of stem cells injected into the retina. Finally, an estimated timeline will be provided for where and when these treatments will be available for patients in the United States in the near future.

WC = 187

Reader’s Profile: A scientist (medical student) who supports research into cures for retinal degenerative diseases, but is wary of the ethical concerns relating to the use of stem cells to treat disease and the implications of ethical controversy on the availability of these treatments to the public.

Reader response:
There seems to be a lot of research in the field of stem cell research for retinal diseases, but unfortunately there are limited treatment options for the public. There is a lot of scope in this research, and I hope that these research avenues will continue to be explored and these treatments will quickly become widely available. I do worry about the ethical issues with working with human embryonic stem cells, upon which some of this research is based. The current political climate makes me think that we should be focusing more on the applications of induced Pluripotent Stem cells rather than human embryonic stem cells due to foreseeable ethical controversies.

A, one answer to your reader might be the possibility of autologous stem cell harvesting? This paper is not promising, but this remains under-explored, I think. You might comment on this as possibility not yet well characterized.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28428049