Stem Cell Therapy for ONH

Background

In the past few years, the medical community has seen an explosion of knowledge and has felt cautious optimism about the future use of cell-based therapies for numerous diseases including blinding diseases of children.1 In general, these potential therapies are centered around stem cells, which can be divided into 3 categories: (1) pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells derived from human embryos; (2) induced pluripotent stem cells, in which differentiated cells, such as skin ?broblasts, are “reprogrammed” to “dedifferentiate;” and (3) somatic stem cells (SSC), derived from tissues such as umbilical cord blood and bone marrow (Grier p.12-17). ...