According to the Huffington Post, recent research from the Pittsburgh School of Medicine states that the stem cells from your wisdom teeth could one day replace the corneal donors and may become the primary method of treating blindness that is caused by damage to the outermost eye layer.
The research team was successfully able to convert the stem cells from the wisdom teeth into keratocytes, which are found in the cornea. They were able to do this by using the soft, central "dental pulp" of the pearly whites.
The more surprising thing is that when these keratocytes were injected in the corneas of mice, the cells began replicating normally. The researchers were now able to create the tissue found in the cornea.
This definitely comes as a sigh of relief, and also as the "Aha!" moment for several reasons. Firstly, they were able to treat corneal blindness with the stem cells from the wisdom teeth. Additionally, they were able to create a lab-made version of the corneal tissue.
According to the University of Pittsburgh, this achievement will definitely help them treat blindness more effectively because there is currently a shortage of donated healthy corneas.
In their press release, Dr. James L. Funderburgh, who is a senior researcher, said "Shortages of donor corneas and rejection of donor tissue do occur, which can result in permanent vision loss...
Our work is promising because using the patient's own cells for treatment could help us avoid these problems."
Now that the team was successfully able to get around the corneal blindness and the rejection of the stromal cell issue, they are now working on the stem cells from the wisdom teeth to reduce the corneal scarring during animal trials.
According to recent reports, the research can be life-changing for humans as there are nearly 38 million blind people around the world, and almost 90 per cent of them live in low-income areas.
