Donor cells against macular degeneration
Japanese doctors in 2017 will transplant retinal tissue from donor cells
Ivan Zakharchenko, RIA Novosti
Japanese doctors plan to start tissue transplantation operations from donor stem cells in patients with severe retinal disease – macular degeneration in the first half of 2017, Japanese media reported.
This disease, which can lead to blindness, affects the retinal vessels in the area of the macula – the center where the beams of light are focused.
According to NHK (Japanese scientists are planning to conduct the world's first clinical study of special iPS cells), researchers at the RIKEN Institute and the Central Hospital in Kobe, as well as the universities of Kyoto and Osaka will be able to perform operations after receiving permission from the government. This month, the Committee of Medical Ethics plans to study the issues of treating the disease with the help of donor induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC, induced pluripotent stem cells).
Until now, as NHK notes, tissues grown from the stem cells of the patient himself have been transplanted, which took about six months and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The use of pre-grown and preserved tissues from donor cells, according to Japanese scientists, will significantly reduce time and money.
According to the Nikkei newspaper (Japan to begin transplants using donor iPS cells), Kyoto University will provide stem cells resistant to immune rejection for operations, and the RIKEN Institute will grow eye retinal cells from them. Osaka University and Kobe Central Hospital will perform operations on implantation of the obtained cells to patients with macular degeneration.
"We have created a strong team of four institutes that we can count on," Shinya Yamanaka, a professor at Kyoto University, told reporters.
In 2006, Yamanaka received a stem cell from a normal human skin cell for the first time in the world, and in 2012 he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
According to Nikkei, clinical studies will be continued using tissues grown from patients' own iPS cells.
About two dozen people are waiting for retinal tissue transplantation.
Earlier, the RIKEN Institute performed surgery for the first time on a 70-year-old patient with macular degeneration, then the elderly Japanese woman's own stem cells were used. According to the newspaper, the treatment cost about one hundred million yen (931 thousand dollars). Tissue transplantation to the second patient was canceled after mutations of his iPS cells were detected.
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07.06.2016