SINGAPORE, 14 April 2023 – 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 towards potentially restoring vision in eye diseases characterised by photoreceptor loss.

Research reveals a promising stem cell approach to correct photoreceptor cell degeneration, which underlies several forms of visual decline and blindness.

An experimental procedure was found to improve the vision of patients whose eyes were damaged, according to a new study. NBC News’ Kristen Dahlgren has more on the procedure, which uses stem cells to restore the cornea.

People don’t go into Michael Angelo’s field to be cool.

“Pathology is like the chess club of medicine,” said Angelo MD, PhD, an assistant professor of pathology at the Stanford School of Medicine. You don’t join for status — you join because you love it, he said.

Still, Angelo got the idea for a pretty cool technology when he was a young pathology resident studying the origins and trajectory of disease.

AMOLF researchers discovered that stem cells first specialize into a functional cell and then move to their proper location—rather than the other way around.

Researchers at AMOLF, Amsterdam, and the Hubrecht institute, Utrecht, revealed a new model to show how stem cells specialize into functional cells. They found that their position in the organ is not as important as current models claim. Rather, stem cells choose their identity first and only then move to their appropriate position.

These discoveries were made using intestinal organoids and the new TypeTracker technique, which can now be used to understand other organs at the cellular level and the effects of mutations and medications. The findings were published on August 18 in the journal Science Advances.

The experiments use human cells to imitate the blastocyst phase — offering a crucial window into human development.