'Big leap' towards curing blindness

21 July 2013 Last updated at 21:32 ET

The prospect of reversing blindness has made a significant leap, according to scientists in the UK.

An animal study in the journal Nature Biotechnology showed the part of the eye which actually detects light can be repaired using stem cells.

The team at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London say human trials are now, for the first time, a realistic prospect.

Experts described it as a "significant breakthrough" and "huge leap" forward.

Photoreceptors are the cells in the retina which react to light and convert it into an electrical signal which can be sent to the brain.

However, these cells can die off in some causes of blindness such as Stargardt's disease and age-related macular degeneration.

There are already trials in people to use stem cells to replace the "support" cells in the eye which keep the photoreceptors alive.

Now the London-based team have shown it is possible to replace the light-sensing cells themselves, raising the prospect of reversing blindness.

They have used a new technique for building retinas in the laboratory. It was used to collect thousands of stem cells, which were primed to transform into photoreceptors, and injected them into the eyes of blind mice.

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'Big leap' towards curing blindness