Therapeutic use of stem cells
Since the 1980s, skin stem cells have been used to grow sheets of new skin for patients with severe burns. But the newly grown skin has no hair follicles, sweat or oil glands so more research still needs to be done.
Medical research has shown that tissue stem cells taken from a part of the eye called the limbus can be used to repair damage to the cornea, the transparent layer at the front of the eye. If the cornea is badly damaged, limbal stem cells can taken from the patient, grown in the lab and then transplanted back on to the patient’s damaged eye, or eyes, in order to restore sight.
But this can only help patients who have some undamaged limbal cells still present in one of their eyes.