Biomaterials and Scaffolds for Cell Replacement Therapy

Retinal degenerative diseases, which include age-related macular degeneration and inherited disorders like retinitis pigmentosa, all have some degree of dysfunction and loss of retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) cells and photoreceptors. Cell therapy has been proposed as a promising approach to treat this group of diseases. For example, RPE can be differentiated in vitro from stem cells and then transplanted into patients with advanced dry age-related macular degeneration with geographic atrophy of RPE (GA).