Stem cell breakthrough

Pioneering stem cell treatment by British scientists has restored the eyesight of people threatened with permanent blindness.

A have-a-go hero left without vision in one eye after a chemical attack 15 years ago said yesterday he had 'got his life back' after surgery.

Russell Turnbull is one of the handful of patients with impaired vision who have been treated successfully by scientists and eye surgeons at the North East England Stem Cell Institute.

A few stem cells from his 'good' eye were grown in the laboratory to 400 times the size, before being transferred to his badly damaged right eye.

The technique avoids the problems of rejection - as the cells come from the patient's own body.

Within a few weeks Mr Turnbull, 38, found his sight back to the level when he was attacked on a bus journey home following a night out in Newcastle in 1994.

He bravely intervened to break up a fight before being squirted in the eye with ammonia.

It caused massive damage to the cornea stem cells, leaving him with severely impaired vision that cost him his job and his jet skiing hobby.

Mr Turnbull, who lives in Consett, County Durham, said 'It was like looking through scratched Perspex. My eye was sensitive to light, it was constantly watering. I was unable to drive as any bright light would cause me pain.'

As a 'guinea pig' on a trial at the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI),  Newcastle University, researchers took a tiny amount of stem cells from the good eye and grew them in a lab.

They were implanted in the damaged eye, where they began to function as normal, restoring sight.

The technique avoids the need for drugs to suppress immunity because the patient's own implanted cells cannot be rejected.

It is also the first in the world that does not use animal products to help grow the stem cells in the lab.

Mr Turnbull said 'This has transformed my life, my eye is almost as good as it was before the accident.

'I'm working, I can go jet-skiing again and I also ride horses. I have my life back thanks to the operation.'

Scientists expect the technique to help hundreds of patients whose eyes have been damaged by contact lenses, in industrial accidents involving thermal or chemical injuries, among other diseases.

Corneal cloudiness or Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency (LSCD) has been estimated to cause blindness in eight million people worldwide each year and affects up to 10,000 people in Britain.

Dr Francisco Figueiredo, a consultant eye surgeon at NESCI, based at Newcastle University, who co-led the project, said the breakthrough could potentially 'help millions of people'.

He said 'This technique we have been working on for the last three years has the potential to change people's lives. By doing an operation to transplant the stem cells we can restore their life back to normal.'

The research, published in the American journal Stem Cells, has been used to help patients with corneal cloudiness in one eye, who have sufficient sight in the remaining eye to provide a supply of healthy stem cells.

But researchers are already carrying out trials involving patients who have damage to both eyes.

Dr Figueiredo said 'I have a 74 year old patient who has not been able to see out of one eye for 54 years.

'At the age of 20 he was attacked in the street with ammonia and lost his sight. Since then he has practically been unable to see out of that eye. Now, having had the operation, he can see again.

'It's incredible. Provided the blindness is caused by stem cell deficiency we can restore their sight using this technique.'

NESCI co-director Professor Michael Whitaker, said 'Stem cells from bone marrow have been used successfully for many years to treat cancer and immune disease, but this is the first successful stem cell therapy using stem cells from the eye without animal products to treat disease.

'Because the early results look so promising, we are thinking hard now about how to bring this treatment rapidly into the clinic as we complete the necessary clinical trials, so that the treatment can be shared with all patients that might benefit.'

A larger study involving 24 new patients is currently under way with funding from the UK's Medical Research Council.
 
Source: Daily Mail