Stephen C Schimpff's Blog Posts Tagged 'degeneration' (2)

A cure for spinal cord injury? Diabetes? Macular degeneration?  Hope or just hype?

There are now some clinical trials using embryonic stem cells to treat serious diseases for which no other good therapy is currently available. But this is just the beginning of a major medical megatrend that will blossom forth in the coming years.

Embryonic stem cells are present after a fertilized egg divides for two or three days. They have the seemingly miraculous ability to turn into…

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Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the United States. More than 1 million Americans have neovascular or “wet” AMD and a slightly lower number have “dry” AMD which often progresses to the more severe “wet” form. Since this is a disease of aging, we can expect many more cases as the population expands in the coming years.



Neovascular AMD appears to be related, at lease in part, to excess production of vascular endothelial growth factor… Continue