Our lab has recently been funded by the National Eye Institute to develop methods for transplantation of stem cell derived retinal ganglion cells into the retinas of non-human primates. This project is a collaborative effort with investigators at the University of Washington Department of Ophthalmology (Jen Chao), Stanford (Jeff Goldberg), Johns Hopkins (Don Zack) and Vanderbilt (David Calkins). Show below (C) is an example of axons (green) from human embryonic stem cell derived neurons growing towards the optic nerve head in the retina of a squirrel monkey. We hope these studies will some day lead to a treatment for diseases like glaucoma, where loss of RGCs leads to visual impairment.
