«In 5 years we will be talking about stem cell based therapies for blindness» Dr. Jordi Monés tells El Periódico

The Director of the Institut de la Màcula, Dr. Jordi Monés, has outlined the prospects opened up by stem cell based therapies for blindness. The macula and vitreous specialist and researcher told the +Salud supplement of El Periódico de Catalunya newspaper that one of the future directions for the treatment of pathologies like Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) involves the creation of induced pluripotent stem cell (IPS) banks. Although Dr Monés described this path as «extremely complicated», he said that research needs to head «in that direction. The idea is to create IPS banks that may be accessed by patients according to their histocompatibility, as in the case of bone marrow banks». Dr. Monés is the Medical Director of the Barcelona Macula Foundation, from where he has projects underway in this area through consortia comprising other top-notch European institutions.

Dr. Monés says that «a lot of money is needed» for this research to proceed at a good pace. He adds that this could happen «very quickly» and in five years «we will be talking» about stem cell therapies against blindness.

You can read the whole interview here (in Catalan) or here (in Spanish).