{"id":240023,"date":"2026-06-30T14:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/lab-grown-retinal-cells-show-promise-for-new-eye-therapies"},"modified":"2026-06-30T14:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:14:24","slug":"lab-grown-retinal-cells-show-promise-for-new-eye-therapies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/lab-grown-retinal-cells-show-promise-for-new-eye-therapies","title":{"rendered":"Lab-grown retinal cells show promise for new eye therapies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/lab-grown-retinal-cells-show-promise-for-new-eye-therapies.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Biomedical engineers at Duke University have used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to grow specialized blood vessel cells critical to retinal health for the first time. When injected into mouse models of retinal disease, these \u201cretinal endothelial cells\u201d integrated into the damaged tissue to regenerate blood vessels and restore retinal function. Researchers also demonstrated the cells\u2019 ability to form functional retinal vascular tissue in a lab-grown environment, providing a pathway to model and research various eye diseases.<\/p>\n<p>The results, published in the journal <i>Nature Biomedical Engineering<\/i>, point toward the potential of using these retinal cells and models to develop new methods for treating vision loss and researching eye disorders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRetinal vascular diseases affect millions of people in the US, but our understanding remains limited, hindering our ability to discover and develop new therapeutics,\u201d said Sharon Gerecht, the Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor and chair of biomedical engineering at Duke. \u201cUsing human stem cells, we generated the cells found in retinal blood vessels, paving the way for new therapeutic approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biomedical engineers at Duke University have used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to grow specialized blood vessel cells critical to retinal health for the first time. When injected into mouse models of retinal disease, these \u201cretinal endothelial cells\u201d integrated into the damaged tissue to regenerate blood vessels and restore retinal function. Researchers also demonstrated the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,38,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-engineering","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}