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CINCINNATI—New research from the University of Cincinnati may help in the recovery of lost vision for patients with corneal scarring.
Winston Whei-Yang Kao, PhD, professor of ophthalmology, along with other researchers in UC’s ophthalmology department found that transplanting human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells into mouse models that lack the protein lumican restored the transparency of cloudy and thin corneas.
Mesenchymal stem cells are “multi-potent” stem cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types.
These findings are being presented Dec. 8 in San Diego at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology.
“Corneal transplantation is currently