Rats with a disease comparable to macular degeneration have had their eyesight restored with injections involving human embryonic stem cells. Scientists hope this will bode well for treating people at risk of the disorder.

Scientists found that visual acuity was restored in the animals after their eyes were injected with stem cells. The cells spontaneously transformed into retinal pigment epithelial cells, the very components that had been destroyed by an eye disease similar to macular degeneration. Macular degeneration is a disorder that ideally lends itself to stem cell treatment. Human embryonic stem cells offer several important advantages. Among them is their capacity to develop into cellular components that closely resemble primary human retinal pigment epithelial cells.

Anybody touched by macular degeneration will find this news to be, at the very least, promising. That is, of course, if you are not Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has been a naysayer of embryonic stem cell research for many moons. In fact, his skepticism this time is because "Dr. Lanza has been involved in a number of claims in the past that turned out not to be very accurate." After all, Dr. Lanza has over 25 years of research and industrial experience in the area of stem cells and regenerative medicine. From 1990 to 1998, he was Director of Transplantation Biology at BioHybrid Technologies, Inc., and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. What does this guy know anyway? What's on your resume, Dick?