Science and Medicine

“We think it may be significantly easier to preserve vision by modifying existing cells in the eye than it would be to introduce new stem cells.”

Doctors may one day treat some forms of blindness by altering the genetic program of the light-sensing cells of the eye, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Working in mice with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that causes gradual blindness, the researchers reprogrammed the cells in the eye that enable night vision. The change made the cells more similar to other cells that provide sight during daylight hours and prevented degeneration of the retina, the light-sensing structure in the back of the eye. The scientists now are conducting additional tests to confirm that the mice can still see.

“We think it may be significantly easier to preserve vision by modifying existing cells in the eye than it would be to introduce new stem cells,” says senior author Joseph Corbo, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and immunology. “A diseased retina is not a hospitable environment for transplanting stem cells.”

The study is available in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more: Altering Eye Cells May One Day Restore Vision

This health disadvantage exists even though the United States spends more per capita on health care than any other nation.

Even wealthy, educated Americans with health insurance die sooner and seem to be sicker than people in other high-income countries.

This health disadvantage exists at all ages from birth to age 75, according to a new report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.

Ana Diez-Roux, University of Michigan professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology, served on the panel that wrote the report.

“The systemic nature of the problem was surprising to the committee, and suggests that a number of interrelated environmental and policy factors may be playing an important role,” Diez-Roux said.

“We were struck by the gravity of these findings,” said Steven Woolf, professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University and chair of the panel that wrote the report. “Americans are dying and suffering at rates that we know are unnecessary because people in other high-income countries are living longer lives and enjoying better health. What concerns our panel is why, for decades, we have been slipping behind.”

Read more: Compared to Peers, US Health Comes up Short