Cell-Based Therapy for Retinal Degenerative Disease

Abstract

This text is an excellent foundation in an extremely rapidly evolving field: cell therapy for degenerative disease. Medicine has been flirting with regenerative medicine for nearly 50 years. There have been some very limited successes and some dramatic failures. However, it appears that we are on the threshold of true breakthroughs. Regenerative medicine is being pursued on several fronts. Gene therapy focuses on identifying the abnormal gene and working to replace or repair the gene itself, which hopefully will then operate more normally. Cell therapy, on the other hand, seeks to replace damaged or degenerating cells with replacement cells-i.e., cell transplantation. Such replacement therapy has concentrated on stem cells, including embryonic stem cells (as might