Four Japanese institutions will collaborate to perform retinal transplants using donor iPS cells, which significantly reduce the cost of this procedure.
Processes to treat macular degeneration banks use donor iPS created by Kyoto University, who will be responsible for growing retinal tissue from such material.
IPS cells (induced pluripotent) are those that through genetic reprogramming can become any type of tissue.
It is expected that the first implants, to be performed about 20 patients, carried out from 2017.
University Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto is considered the father of iPS-which earned him the Nobel Prize in 2012 Medicine- to develop the method to create these cells by reprogramming and mature cells.
The discovery solves the ethical problem in principle to work with embryonic stem cells as iPS, also they possess the ability to transform into any type of cell, and is a very important for the advancement of regenerative medicine step.