Researchers have found that old, fully mature cells in the cornea can become stem cells again. The cells rebuilt the eye’s stem cell supply even after every last stem cell had been destroyed.
Cells that had nearly stopped dividing pulled off the reversal and kept the tissue healthy for the rest of the animal’s life.
The cornea is the clear dome at the front of the eye, and losing its stem cells can rob a person of sight.
A repair system the body runs on its own raises the prospect that some blindness could one day be reversed without a transplant from a donor.
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The research was led by stem cell biologists Prof. Ruby Shalom-Feuerstein and Dr. Shalini Dimri-Wagh in the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine.
