Dead could help the living see

CELLS that might one day cure some kinds of blindness have been staring =
us in the face, according to Derek van der Kooy of the University of =
Toronto. "Everyone had assumed that the eye did not contain stem cells," =
van der Kooy told a stem cell meeting in Melbourne, Australia. But =
several years ago his team found retinal stem cells in the eyes of mice. =
Now the researchers have isolated them in humans, from the black ring =
around the iris. When these cells are injected into the eyes of baby =
mice, they generate all the different retinal cell types, including the =
light-detecting rods and cones. The team used cells from eyes donated to =
the Eye Bank of Canada. Each eye provides about 10,000 cells, and each =
of these can yield 15,000 progenitor cells. "The important next step is =
to show function," says Pritinder Kaur of the Peter MacCallum Cancer =
Institute in Melbourne. "They need to show that they can make a blind =
mouse see." To do this, van der Kooy plans to inject the cells into the =
eyes of adult mice, including some that have genetic disorders that =
cause the photoreceptors to degenerate as they do in retinitis =
pigmentosa, a disease that causes progressive blindness in a humans.     =
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