Abstract

DO.09.09

Retinal progenitor cells in therapeutic approaches

Michael J. Young

Harvard Medical School, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Boston, U.S.A.

Background
My laboratory is directed toward repair of the mature diseased central nervous system, specifically the degeneration that occurs in the retina during disease or injury.
Methods
We have focused on the use of stem or progenitor cells, which we have isolated from a number of regions of the neuraxis of several different mammalian species. 
Results
During the last 5 years, work in my lab has established that neural stem or progenitor cells overcome the barrier to morphological integration present in the mature mammalian retina. We have also demonstrated that neural stem cells are an inherently immune privileged tissue, and survive in conventional sites in allogeneic recipients. We have also isolated stem cell from the mouse, pig, and human retina, and shown that such cells are capable of photoreceptor differentiation. We have now embarked upon a series of studies in the pig retina, with the goal of establishing functional connectivity between donor retinal stem cells and the mature, diseased host retina. By using large animals such as the domestic pig, we can take advantage of the availability transgenic donor and hosts, so that we can graft GFP + donor cells into RP porcine recipients, the large eye size that allows traditional pars plana vitrectomy and other retinal surgical techniques; and the ability to evaluate the functional impact of the graft with techniques such as multifocal ERG.
Conclusions
This approach will allow us to make important steps toward our goal of functional restoration of vision.

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