Approaches to Cell Delivery: Substrates and Scaffolds for Cell Therapy

摘要: Retinal degeneration, associated with loss of photoreceptors, is the primary cause permanent vision impairment, impacting millions people worldwide. Age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa are two common retinal diseases resulting in photoreceptor impairment or blindness. Presently, available treatments can only delay progress there no that restore loss. Research underway to develop methods regenerating impaired retina by delivering precursor cells pigment epithelium subretinal space. Challenges cell transplantation include limited survival upon implantation formation abnormal architectures vivo. tissue engineering shows immense promise potential treatment employing scaffold-based delivery systems progenitor Scaffold strategy has been shown enhance direct differentiation a variety degenerative models. In this chapter, we summarize research findings on different scaffold- substrate-based techniques used deliver progenitor/photoreceptor precursors epithelial