7/31/2009 PERMALINK
Scientists program blood stem cells to become vision cells University of Florida researchers were able to program bone marrow stem cells to repair damaged retinas in mice, offering a potential treatment for age-related vision loss. The success implies that blood stem cells taken from bone marrow can be programmed to restore a variety of the body's cells and tissues including heart and arteries. "Although we used genes, we also suggest you can do the same thing with drugs," said Dr. Maria B. Grant, a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at UF's College of Medicine. "Ultimately you would not give the drugs to the patient, you would give the drugs to their cells. Take the cells out, activate certain chemical pathways, and put the cells back into the patient."