Nobel Winner’s Stem Cells to Be Tested in Eye Malady in 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-08/nobel-winner-s-stem-cells-to-be-tested-in-eye-disease-next-year.html


Thomas Perlmann of Karolinska Institute presents Sir John B. Gurdon of Britain and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan as winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology. The prize committee at Stockholm’s Karonlinska institute said the discovery has “revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop.” Photograph by Bertil Enevag Ericson/Scanpix/AP Photo

Stem cells derived from a mouse’s skin won Shinya Yamanaka the Nobel Prize yesterday. Now researchers in Japan are seeking to use his pioneering technology for an even greater prize: restoring sight.

Scientists at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe plan to use so-called induced pluripotent stem cells in a trial among patients with macular degeneration, a disease in which the retina becomes damaged, resulting in loss of vision, Yamanaka told reporters in San Francisco yesterday.

Companies including Pfizer Inc. (PFE) are already planning trials of stem cells derived from human embryos. The Japanese study will be the first to use a technology that mimics the power of embryonic cells while avoiding the ethical controversy that accompanies them.

“The work in that area looks very encouraging,” John B. Gurdon, 79, a professor at the University of Cambridge who shared the Nobel with Yamanaka yesterday, said in an interview in London.