Dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a progressive deterioration of the macula caused by the death and failure of retinal cells to renew. It is the leading cause of vision loss in older Americans and has not been well treated.
Recently, at the National Institutes of Health, a surgical team successfully implanted a tissue block made from a patient's cells to treat advanced dry AMD.
This patient received the therapy as part of a clinical trial and become the first in the United States to use an alternative tissue derived from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC).
Besides dry AMD, stem cell therapy provides promising treatment for various diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases and conditions, diabetes, and heart diseases. Therefore, stem cell therapy has not only become the hope of numerous patients but also an area where many companies in the pharmaceutical industry are competing to develop.
According to statistics, the global market size of stem cell therapy was valued at USD 11910.63 million in 2021 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 8.18% during the forecast period, reaching USD 19090.47 million by 2027.
The iPSC mentioned above, as a kind of stem cell, is one of the focuses of stem cell research.
iPSCs can be derived from somatic tissue cells such as skin or blood cells and enables the development of an unlimited source of any type of human cell needed for therapeutic purposes.
"At present, there are many researchers around the world who are working hard in this field, and perhaps in another 5-10 years, organs derived from iPSC can be used in the clinic on a certain scale," the researcher commented.
In particular, the technologies of iPSC reprogramming and iPSC gene editing are gradually maturing, which greatly accelerates the development of iPSC cell therapy.
Reprogramming technology can successfully reprogram human somatic cells into a pluripotent state, and the iPSCs generated can differentiate into a variety of primary cells, such as cardiomyocytes, nerve cells, hepatocytes, islet β cells, and T cells. This provides a new research tool for in vitro drug screening, disease pathology study, and drug safety evaluation.
Through CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology, iPSC can provide effective research models for the occurrence and treatment of a variety of diseases.
At present, the opportunities and challenges of stem cell therapy coexist, but its development potential and application prospects are still worth looking forward to.
