World’s First Human Stem Cell Clinical Trial Approved by Japanese Government
By Ida Torres,
Japan Daily Press
| 07. 19. 2013
The Japanese government finally gave its approval for the world’s first clinical trials using stem cells that will be harvested from the patient’s body. Health Minister Norihisa Tamura gave permission for two research institutes to start their tests to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by using “induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells”.
The Riken Center for Developmental Biology and the Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation (IBRI) Hospital in Kobe will be doing the joint testing to treat AMD, a condition that usually causes blindness among the elderly. This condition is incurable at the moment, and affects around 700,000 middle-aged to older people in Japan alone. Their proposal was
approved by a government committee last month, but they had to wait for the Health Ministry to sign off before starting the tests.
Riken will harvest the stem cells from the patients while IBRI will conduct the transplant by the middle of next year. The trial treatment will try
replacing the damaged part of the eye of six patients who have AMD with the retinal cells that will be created from the...
Related Articles
By Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times | 04.09.2024
A decade ago, researcher Haruko Obokata caused a sensation when she published two papers in the journal Nature, in which she claimed that she had discovered a way to create stem cells easily using the so-called STAP method.
With STAP...
By Yelena Biberman and Jonathan D. Moreno, Bioethics Forum | 04.16.2024
A quiet biological revolution in warfare is underway. The genome is emerging as a new domain of conflict. The level of destruction that only nuclear weapons could previously achieve is fast becoming as accessible as a cyberattack.
Now for the...
By Jorge Barrera and Rachel Houlihan, CBC | 04.09.2024
A Canadian DNA laboratory knowingly delivered prenatal paternity test results that routinely identified the wrong biological fathers — ruling out the real dads — and left a trail of shattered lives around the globe, a CBC News investigation has found...
By Eleanor Hayward and Joanna Crawford, The Times | 03.29.2024
Gazing out at the Mediterranean from an idyllic rocky mountaintop, Sophie Hermann announced to her half a million Instagram followers that she had decided to freeze her eggs. Since that post in August, the 37-year-old former Made in Chelsea star...