The following text is an AI-generated, expert-checked summary of a key research study cited in a feature article from Scientific American’s May 2023 issue: Synthetic Morphology Lets Scientists Create New Life-Forms by Philip Ball.
You can find the study itself here: iPSC-based treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD): The path to success requires more than blind faith by Li et al., published in Genes & Diseases in 2017.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a common cause of blindness in older people. Current treatments can only slow down the disease. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a cell variety that can become many different types of cells, and they might be useful for treating AMD. Fei Li from Chongqing Medical University in China and his colleagues studied iPSC-based treatment for AMD and explored the challenges of using it in real-life situations.
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The study looked at two recent cases with different results. In the first case, Japanese researchers made an iPSC line from skin cells of an older AMD patient. They turned these iPSCs into retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, which are important for vision, and put these RPE cells into the patient’s eye, which stopped the patient’s vision from getting worse. In the second case, three older AMD patients lost their vision after getting an unapproved treatment with “stem cells” from their own fat tissue at other clinics.
These different results show that we need to know more about how to turn stem cells into the right types of cells before we can use them to treat diseases like AMD. We also need to make sure that treatments are safe and effective before using them on patients. Future research should focus on solving problems with genomic instability and making sure that iPSC-based therapies are safe and work well before they can be used widely for AMD treatment.