
Woman is first to receive cornea made from ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells - bookofjoe
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02597-2
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mkl
My first corneal transplant, in 1993, involved literally waiting for someone
appropriate to die, and going into a major operation with a few days' notice.
By 1998, when I had my other cornea transplanted, NZ had a well-established
cornea bank, a steady supply of donor corneas stored (short term) and ready
for whoever needed one next, and so I was able to choose the time in advance.

Any improvements to this process and these kinds of procedure will be very
beneficial.

Corneas are comparatively easy to transplant, as they have no blood supply
(oxygenated through tears), so there are few rejection problems and no
immunosuppression drugs needed long term. That means this kind of stem cell
approach is probably mostly useful when there are supply issues, as the
article implies, rather than for compatibility reasons.

~~~
Jedd
My SO had her first corneal transplant done at Moorfield (UK) about 8 years
ago, and the second in Sydney (AU) earlier this year - in both cases it's
astonishing how fast the eye adapts, especially given there's stitches holding
the thing in, and they stay in for twelve months and are then removed - ie.
not dissolving thread.

Specifically, she had better than contact lens corrected over the previous
state within a month or two.

Actually, equal parts astonishing and depressing, given my eyesight (after
several decades spent staring at screens) is guaranteed to get worse, not
better, from here on out.

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brohee
Skin cells DNA should be among the most damaged by the time we need
replacement organs no? Surely there is a better source of pluripotent stem
cells?

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kuroguro
I didn't see the name of the disease. Is this for severe Keratoconus or
something else?

_edit_

Seems to be Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency.

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urs2102
Any information on the state of the patient’s vision both pre and post-op?

If you’re going from, let’s assume, blindness, to now full vision: how does
your visual cortex move from dormant to active? Is it jarring?

~~~
simion314
Of topic a bit but I recently watched some youtube videos about people hearing
for the first time, I was surprised how instant things appear to be. Thinking
about it you have baby animals that can just walk after a few minutes at
tbirth so it makes sense that most of the basic mechanism are pre-programmed
before birth.

~~~
raverbashing
There are a couple of stories of people born blind/deaf that choose to revert
an operation that restores their senses because they find it too "confusing"
(can't make sense of it basically).

I believe trying to "learn" those things after youth neuroplasticity is gone
is _hard_

~~~
simion314
I can't believe that(but I will read any credible links if you have ), in the
hearing case the people would turn off the device in the beginning when they
feel overwhelmed, I assume that for the eyes you can cover them when you also
get tired or if you are in a place with lot of visual information.

~~~
jrace
I worked in Audiology for 15 years and saw many elderly people unable to adapt
to the changes and device acceptance was inversely related to age.

The world is a noisy place, and the less you exercises your noise reduction
skills the harder it is to cope.

the #1 complaint I received from new users: "I hear too much noise"

the #1 request from all hearing aid users: "I only want to hear what I want to
hear and nothing else"

Imagine telling your optometrist you only want to see the nice things in life.

In the Deaf community many people are shunned if they use hearing devices.

[http://meducator.org/2018/01/the-cochlear-implant-
genocide-o...](http://meducator.org/2018/01/the-cochlear-implant-genocide-or-
medical-miracle/)

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Bantros
That's quite amazing

