Share

---  Researchers on Tiananmen Square  ---
from L to R: Hori’s lab manager, Hiroko - Dr. Junko Hori - Dr. Henry Klassen, MD, PhD & session organizer Don Sakaguchi

Dr. Klassen’s presentations were on quantitative changes in the gene expression, one on the profile of mouse retinal progenitor and the other on porcine CNS progenitor cells cultured on nanowire scaffolds. Scaffolds will be important in delivering sheets of progenitor cells to damaged eyes.

Of particular note was a report from researchers in Japan saying that they have now grown human retinal photoreceptors using human skin cells that were reprogrammed to become stem cells. This suggests that it may be possible to repair the retina using a small sample of a patient’s skin. At this stage in the research, this requires extensive genetic modification of the cells, however, recent reports in other labs suggest that similar results can be obtained with less genetic manipulation. Since genetic manipulation generates additional risks in the use of the stem cells, the clinical application of this work would benefit from new studies showing ways to minimize the amount of genetic modification required.

The results presented at this international forum, illustrated the high degree of interest in use of stem cells and the remarkable progress that has been made over the past few years. Scientists are now able to grow human retinal progenitor cells, directly, from human embryonic stem cells and reprogrammed skin cells. The scientists have now shown that all of the previously mentioned types of stem-like cells can form photoreceptors (i.e., rods and cones) following transplantation in rodents.

As these ICER meetings only happen every two years, the next one is not scheduled until July 2010, when it will be held in Montreal.