The link between age and vision loss may be a thing of the past.
New UF research suggests that bone marrow stem cells can be programmed to repair damaged retinas in people with macular degeneration, which causes worsened vision with age.
According to Maria Grant, senior researcher for the project, the researchers experimented on mice and injected adult bone marrow stem cells into the rodents' circulatory systems after modifying them to act like retinal cells.
"It's a unique way to program cells," Grant said. "UF's the first to do it in this way."
The new procedure will target diseases like macular degeneration, the damage to a critical area of the retina, and cardiovascular disorders, such as atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease.
Macular degeneration affects almost two million people in the United States, making it the most common cause of vision loss in the country.
"Macular degeneration usually causes blindness," Grant said. "[This research] will someday restore vision."
Grant said she thinks the same effect could be created by injecting drugs into the cells instead of modifying them in a culture.
The researchers found that they could activate the stem cells by mimicking the body's natural signaling channels with chemicals, using drug manipulation rather than genetic manipulation, Grant explained.
Twenty-eight days after receiving the modified stem cells, the mice with damaged retinas showed no differences from the normal mice. This suggests the same thing would happen in humans because mice are used as a common model for human disease, Grant said.
Grant and UF have a pending patent on their research, which was developed over about four years, and they hope to start clinical trials for the procedure within the next year, Grant said.
