Stem Cell Treatment To Cure the Most Common Cause of Blindness 126
The Times Online reports that researchers from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital have developed stem cell therapy that can treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness. They are currently moving the treatment through the regulatory approval process, and clinical trials are expected to start within two years. Quoting:
"Under the new treatment, embryonic stem cells are transformed into replicas of the missing cells. They are then placed on an artificial membrane which is inserted in the back of the retina. ... [Professor Pete Coffey, director of the London Project to Cure Blindness] said the treatment would take 'less than an hour, so it really could be considered as an outpatient procedure. We are trying to get it out as a common therapy.'
This is good and all (Score:5, Funny)
But don't let this discourage any mad scientist from creating ocular implants, especially ones with wifi and defensive laser beams.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This is good and all (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
But don't let this discourage any mad scientist from creating ocular implants, especially ones with wifi and defensive laser beams.
Porn. After you go blind from watching too much porn, you'll get an implant that beams the porn directly to your brain.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, how do you fit a shark into an eye socket?
Very carefully.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, how do you fit a shark into an eye socket?
Very carefully.
I've found it helpful to practice with a camel and a needle-eye before attempting sharks and real eyes.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Straight to stem-cell cures? (Score:4, Informative)
...Kurzweil suggests we'll all be in robot bodies before the century's end...
I think I would rather have the robot augmentation than chance stem cells turning on me. [sciam.com]
From the above link;
Then he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2005. That tumor, it turns out, grew out of the stem cells, obtained from at least two aborted fetuses, used in his brain.
Besides can stem cells give you telescopic vision? Now that would be cool!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Actually "synthetic" bodies which i suppose you could call robots have been around for quite some time...though it is hidden from the general public. Science fiction writers are often writing about technology existing in THEIR time(such as time travel and "star gates") but is not in the public eye. Start with the Omega and Majestic projects if you wish to research ;)
Good reason for that (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do not get me wrong. I am not opposed to other nations doing this. I am opposed to our having killed our RD work, while running up debt in much higher numbers.
Re: (Score:2)
Star Trek: The Next Generation had Geordi La Forge [wikipedia.org] wearing a visor that gave him sight. Now all he needs are some stem cells. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and Kurzweil suggests we'll all be in robot bodies before the century's end, so those great hard science fiction writers of half a century ago fall even further behind.
I think that most people don't realize that most machines in 100 years will be indistinguishable from organic systems.
And vice versa.
Of course you could make a machine to look like a machine, but it is highly likely machines will be designed like living organisms simply because it is more efficient that way.
Still a long way to go... (Score:5, Informative)
IAAO (I am an Ophthalmologist).
Although the article does not mention what kind of cells and membranes are transplanted and wether it is going to be used in exsudative or non-exsudative AMD I would assume that it's retinal Pigment Epithelium and Bruch's Membrane being used in wet (= exsudative) AMD.
Therefore this seems to involve subretinal surgery, which is not a piece of cake and usually diminishes visual accuity.
Previous attempts in this direction have already been done (macular rotation, retinal pigment epithelium transplants, etc.), results have not been all too gratifying.
Re:Still a long way to go... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still a long way to go... (Score:4, Informative)
IANAO IAAO (I am not an Opthomologist, I am an Orthopaedist)
Anyway, I think the GP is suggesting that it's not just a little loss of visual acuity, but a lot, a whole lot. Maybe even enough to make it not worthwhile.
If I recall correctly, the retina is kinda made backwards - the nerves are on top of the retinal layer. So one has to peel back the nerves to work on the layer underneath. I can't imagine that individual nerves like this at all.
Re:Still a long way to go... (Score:5, Funny)
Why are you abbreviating and then writing out the abbreviation? Doesn't that kind of negate the point of an abbreviation?
Most people on the Tubes would have saved themselves a lot of time by just writing the commonly-used abbreviation, "WAYAATWOTA? DTKONTPOAA?"
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, a little scary, here's what I heard: "why are you always attempting to write out the acronyms?" Then it fell down...
And, LOL, when I searched for both "acronym WAYAATWOTA" and "acronym DTKONTPOAA", the only search result returned was to the parent comment. :)
Re: (Score:2)
For those who haven't been reading enough Slashdot:
You know you've been reading too much Slashdot when you can read abbreviations without having to spell them out
Re:Still a long way to go... (Score:5, Informative)
"Blindness" is being used in this context in a technical but generally accepted sense to mean vision so poor that you can't see the top letter on the eye chart with either eye. That's a grim state to be in, but most people who are "legally blind" like this are far from having no vision at all.
In particular, Macular Degeneration hardly ever leads to the total blindness you are referring to.
That doesn't mean it isn't a horrible crippling condition of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't sound right. I'm pretty sure I can't see the top letter and I'm only about -4.0 or so.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
IAAO IANAO (I am an Ophtalmologist, I am not an Orthopedist).
You are correct. However, the structure affected in AMD is not directly the retina but Bruch's Membrane and the retinal pigment epithelium which both separate the retina from the underlying chorioid. (Vessels and subsequent retinal edema due to neovascularisation from the underlying chorioid to the retina is what is what is making exsudative AMD wet).
In any way in order to place something between the chorioid and the retina you have to get past th
Re: (Score:2)
I ask because my father has RP, and I'm curious as to whether to send this article to my Mom or not...
Re: (Score:2)
There's actually a potential space between the photoreceptors (rods and cones)and the outermost layer of the retina, the pigment epithelium. This is the level at which the retina comes loose in retinal detachment.
The way you do this is not to get between the photoreceptors and the nerve fibre layer (which would cause total loss of vision in that part of the retina) but between the photoreceptors and the pigment epithelium, essentially
Re:Still a long way to go... (Score:5, Funny)
IANAO IAAO (I am not an Opthomologist, I am an Orthopaedist)
EIEIO (I am a farmer)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Still a long way to go... (Score:5, Informative)
This is, I think, stem cell implantation subretinally for Geographic Atrophy, a.k.a "dry" macular degeneration. Potentially a big deal inasmuch as currently we have no treatment for this at all and it accounts for 90% of all macular degeneration.
It involves major invasive surgery: "outpatient procedure" gives a highly misleading idea of what's involved. It doesn't mean any more than that you could get away with not admitting the patient to hospital, not that you could ever do it anywhere except in an operating theatre.
Moorfields have lately developed a very bad habit of prematurely and misleadingly announcing "breakthroughs" in eye treatment, which I suspect is related to their own funding issues (they did this not long ago with some extremely misleading publicity about three patients with Leber's Amaurorosis they'd treated with gene therapy, not one of whom in fact showed measurable objective improvement in vision - not the impression the news reports tried to give.)
Peng Khaw BTW is not a retinal expert (though Lyndon da Cruz certainly is; he was also involved in the publicity about the gene therapy, interestingly.)
I'm sorry to say that I think this is the Moorfields spin machine in action.
Re:Still a long way to go... (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, thank god for that (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading the article, is hardly ready for use, so far only tested on rats and pigs. There'll be many years of trials before its ready for use on people. Plus Stem cells have be known to turn cancerous, cancer of the retina, would be quickly fatal, there so close to the brain.
Stem cells have tremendous potential to cure disease and even to reverse the aging process. The next twenty years of research might total change the sad process of aging in human.
Stem cells [feeddistiller.com] feed at Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
Re:Wow, thank god for that (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, don't get too hung up on it. I'm legally blind and have no trouble with coding, video games, and especially porn. Could be the porn that got me into this mess in the first place (mom always said I'd go blind), but whatever.
Re: (Score:2)
And just in time, too, from my POV. I'm 59 right now, so there's a good chance (if you're right) for those new treatments to come in right on time for me to take advantage of them.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Stem cells (Score:2)
Are the answer to most any illness that doesn't have a hard genetic base to it. ( since the 'new' cells will eventually take on the same old genetic deficiency )
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you patch wrong genes in the stem cells before the transplantation.
A treatment to get rid of AMD? (Score:5, Funny)
"On hearing the announcement that researchers have found a cure for AMD, a spokesman for computing giant Intel said 'It's about bloody time.'".
/ducks
Masturbation? (Score:2, Funny)
Finally! Now, can someone do something about the hair on my palms?
Re: (Score:1)
Finally! Now, can someone do something about the hair on my palms?
Yes. [shaveeverywhere.com]
The Most Common Cause of Blindness (Score:5, Funny)
There are politics to this (Score:2, Interesting)
Let them go blind.
RS
Re: (Score:2)
And I think that anyone who is opposed to embryonic stem cell research should not be allowed to have this treatment, should they need it and testing proves it successful.
Let them go blind.
What makes you think they would want it? There ARE people out there that have values they actually believe in.
Re:There are politics to this (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you, and I think the abortion comparison is apt. To put it another way, there are a lot of people out there that are anti-abortion and have kids they probably didn't want.
The difference between those who mouth adherence to values and those who practice what they preach!
Re: (Score:2)
So if you're opposed to the manner in which the research was done, you shouldn't be allowed to benefit from the resulting medical treatment? Interesting. Well, I hope that if you're ever rescued from some mountainside with severe frostbite and hypothermia, you won't mind being allowed to die. Because an awful lot of our knowledge of how t
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, I apologise. I assumed you would object to the medical experimentation on prisoners in death camps during the war. If you do not object to such experimentation, then certainly you can enjoy the benefits thereof with a clear conscience. If you did object to a fascist regime deliberately freezing members of mi
The leading cause of blindness (Score:1)
And the first thing you'll see... (Score:3, Funny)
Best comment ever (Score:2)
Wish I had mod points.
Re: (Score:1)
Baby Jesus stem cells have twice the healing power!
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
A spokesman for Intel expressed great interest in the technology:
"AMD has been a problem we've tried to combat for years, but until now, no matter how much we tried to suppress it, it always managed to survive. Not anymore."
NVIDIA declined to comment on this news story.
Religous FUD (Score:2, Interesting)
Just for the record... (Score:2, Insightful)
First, it's not religious FUD. The fact that a human embryo is, well, human, is not disputed by any in the scientific community. Nor is the fact that a fertilized embryo will, under the normal course of nature (i.e., implanted in the womb, carried to term, etc...) become what most people recognize as a human being.
What Bush did was simply stop federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Which didn't ban it outright, it just meant that taxpayer dollars wouldn't be used to fund it. Which is kind o
Hmmm (Score:2)
I'll dispute it. Well actually I might dispute it, depending upon what your definition of human is.
When that sperm an egg meld together and feverishly start multiplying, then that 'could be' implanted in a womb and 'could become' a person. It's still just a lump of cells and personally I couldn't give a monkey's what's done with it.
When we move into abortion I get a little more uncomfortable. Officially I'm
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Just to Confuse the Issue (Score:2)
Pluri-potent cells, unlike differentiated cells, have the ability to morph into the needed tissue type, differentiated cells, alone cannot effectively repair injury or organ failure, stem cells, embryonic or not can. Autonomic (self generated, Pluri-potent cells) are to be pr
Warning (Score:2)
Science cured another disease? (Score:1)
Oh, man (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hi. Medical professional here. Do you have a source? Because that's not my thinking, or the thinking of most others I've discussed the issue with.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
HTH
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Hi Medical Professional here, you may recognise me from such medical products as "Your First Colonoscopy" and the award winning "Bilateral Orchiectomy."
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
> Most of the medical profession believes that adult stem cells are more likely to offer cures than embryonic stem cells
Because this article is just a troll for more funding and to give Obama's recent stem cell ruling credibility. Sorry guys, truth time. Who in their right mind is going to want to take drugs the rest of their life to stop the body from rejecting the implant? Those drugs can be wicked. That is why this procedure isn't going anywhere until they find a way to do it with the patient's ow
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps; perhaps. Perhaps you are correct.
However, and this is an important however: your post is not going to receive funding. The research discussed in the article, however trollish, likely will. So, I've learned something from your post, even if it wasn't directly what you were conveying. :)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So if you had a choice between saving a vat of frozen embryos from a fire or a single person of any age, you would pick the embryos? How about if the single person was your child; would you still pick the vat of embryos?
By the way, for all the folks who are against using stem cells to cure disease, feel free to go blind while the rest of us enjoy our vision. As someone who has a genetic predisposition towards getting MD when I get older, I am more than happy to sacrifice a few bundles of cells that were goi
Re: (Score:1)
This isn't a choice between saving one or saving the other. It's killing one to save the other vs. not killing one, leaving the other to die. The vast majority of people consider killing very different from not saving.
(I, however, would kill the embryo. No mind (no mental activity) = no mor
Re: (Score:1)
Where do you plug the embryo vat freezing unit into on this raft? May as well ditch it if you can't..
Unless you crashed the plane in the Arctic Ocean of course in which case you're all screwed anyway (apart from the embryos but they have no frigging idea what's going on).
The Real Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
So let's say they come up with a cure for something, anything, using embryonic stem cells.
The next logical step is to produce this cure in production quantities. How long until the supply of embryos in storage from artificial insemination attempts, etc. are exhausted?
What then? The only option is pay men and women for their sperm and eggs so that they can produce the embryos from which to harvest the stem cells. I understand that extracting eggs is an expensive and painful process. Of course, give a guy a H
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Please read my original comment about paying attention in school, the point is simply that lots of different embryos give you lots of different genes, which is what you need to screen for cause.
Once you have found the right gene you can prevent the cell from differentiating and mass produce in vitro.
A case of a nail, 2 4 8
This is precisely what I meant about truely dumb-ass comments from lac
Re: (Score:2)
Just how many embryos do you think you will need to go through to find what you think you need?
Research in this manner is not much different than producing the remedy. Look at the mass produced lines of mice that have this or that particular genetic feature. Finding the cure is a mass production effort in and of itself.
And I bet you would have felt right at home in other "successful" societies where science and reason were the primary influences. Umm...can you tell me which one that was again?
mod parent up (Score:1, Offtopic)
thank you for your excellent post. unfortunately I lack mod points at the moment.
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
This is not a Straw Man.
There. I responded with the same substance as you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Vampirism (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't see how taking the life of an embryo so that the older or sick can keep on living is anything other than vampirisim (in a loose sense of the word, or course).
Erm, someone correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't this been discussed time and time again. Embryos for stem cell research are not bred just for the purpose of being "killed". The cells, at least acording to what I've heard/read (again, prove me wrong if you know any better, I'm not a professional) are taken from embryos that were fertilized for the purposes of fertility treatment/artificial impregantion. During those treatments multiple embryos are fertilized and some of them are the discared. The stem cells are extracted from discarded embryos. This means that the embryos would "die" anyway and at least this way they're being used for something beneficial.
Moreover, I don't understand the problem at all. Embryos aren't humans. They are clusters of cells. They are by no means sentient or intelligent. So what's the whole deal about "vapirism"? People donate blood and organs all the time - this is not so far from it. Bottom line is: The embryo is alive in the sense all cells are alive but it has no "life" to be taken away. If you seriously think that way I suggest you stop eating any food because by eating vegetables you're basically taking the life of another organism so that you can live and according to you, that's "vampirism".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The cells, at least acording to what I've heard/read (again, prove me wrong if you know any better, I'm not a professional) are taken from embryos that were fertilized for the purposes of fertility treatment/artificial impregantion.
Correct, and fears that we'll start encouraging abortions to get stem cells are also absurd: by the time a woman knows she is pregnant, "embryonic stem cells" as in completely undifferentiated cells good for replacing any organ, are not found in the fetus. ESC useful for that are only found within a window of 3-5 days after fertilization, before the embryo has implanted into the uterine wall and before a blood test would even indicate a woman is pregnant.
Is Genocide Even Wrong? (Score:2)
Moreover, I don't understand the problem at all. Embryos aren't humans. They are clusters of cells. They are by no means sentient or intelligent.
Hey, that's a lot of subjectivity in there. I could make up any definition really, to say you aren't human, and from there, harvest all your parts. We only really say that embryos aren't human because they can't argue with us, and we can't see them. But, if it ever came out that eating a black guy would make white poop gold nuggets, there would be no black peopl
Re: (Score:1)
Having been on the patient side of the desk for infertility treatments, I would definately say that not human fits.
A true story:
During preparations for IVF, DOZENS as in more than 24 eggs were harvested at once. ALL of which were given the chance to fertilize. In our case 29 eggs were prepared. out of those 29, 10 divided. Out of those 10, 5 made it to the blastocyst stage. (this is where stem cells come from) the cell count of the inner cellular mass at that point is in the hundreds. I saw the pictures of
Re: (Score:2)
Even if Obama screws up everything else he touches, having the sense to lift the ban on stem cell research makes him a success in my eyes.
This ban was probably the single most destructive thing Bush did, not just for us, but all of mankind.
Other countries are light years ahead of us on SC research because of this.
I can't wait til the people against it get their lives saved, or can walk again, because of advances made through stem cell research.
-Viz
Re: (Score:2)
It's just yuck factor, you'll get over it. It comes with a lot of new medical advances. When the first live organ transplants were done people thought of Dr Frankenstein and Igor cackling over the patchwork man on the slab. Blood transfusion similarly met with superstitious opposition, which survives in some sects to this day. And going
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's fair to list you as a flaimbit - it was a legitimate question.
My response (and probably echoing hundreds of others) - there is no death involved.. The stem cell, on the contrary, is being given a chance to live on as a new replicating mass organ. I would imagine if the cell could experience thought - it would be thanking us for saving us from the bowels of the toilet.. Which is where ALLLLLLLL stems cells go when their host mother has their period.