By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Blind patients suffering from a type of eye disease that strikes in childhood will become the second group of people in the world to receive stem cells derived from spare IVF embryos left over from fertility treatment.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the go-ahead for the controversial transplant of embryonic stem cells into the eyes of patients with Stargardt's macular degeneration, where the light-sensitive retina cells at the back of eye are destroyed.
The announcement follows the first injection of embryonic stem cells into a patient in the US who is partially paralysed as a result of a spinal cord injury. Last October, a US biotechnology company, Geron, announced the start of the first clinical trial of embryonic stem cells with the hope of repairing damaged nerves.
Another US biotechnology firm, Advanced Cell Technology, has now been given approval for a second clinical trial involving the injection of thousands of embryonic stem cells into the eyes of a dozen adult patients with a juvenile form of macular degeneration.