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Comment by wolfram74 | Hacker News Reader

As someone with moderate keratoconus[0] and a belling reflex[1] that makes the opthamologist go fetch the residents because they need to see it, I am always looking forward to developments that might let me get new dang eyes, or at least replace my corneas.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus#Signs_and_symptoms [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_phenomenon

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This is not at all about opthamologists.

Ability to grow any organ from stem cells, let alone as complex as an eye, is breathtaking development that up until now was basically Sci-Fi.

I don't have a lot of knowledge in the field, but I believe that once we learn how to grow one organ there isn't a lot than more hard work to learn how to grow other organs.

I wonder if we will see the day where stem cells are collected at birth, and saved.

A woman has the baby, and the umbilical stem cells are collected, and put in a deep freeze. Instead of circumsision, that doctor would be more concerned about saving the stem cells?

Who knows what medical breakthroughs will come?

(I don't know much about stem cells, other than the political stuff associated woth them.)

This is done today by stem cell banks. They're typically used for treatment of diseases like leukemia. Public stem cell banks work similarly to blood banks, and there are private banks where your stem cells are saved for your family. Private banks are, in general, much more expensive.

From what I understand, though, stem cells don't last longer than a few years in storage. Making private banks a less useful.

Couldn't you get pregnant, abort the fetus and harvest stem cells?

(Or just farm fertilized eggs)

Doesn’t fat tissue contain enough stem cells to go around? I also don’t know much on that issue, but have seen that there are stem cell treatments that are based on a small liposuction.

I’m sure you’ve seen a large volume of research involving cross linking and such related to keratoconus. It’s my hope that in the future we find patients like yourself well before they have progressed to later stages and have therapies affordable enough to prevent further progression.

Edit: I forgot to mention but newer techniques for corneal transplant are within reach, and current techniques in the right hands are very successful at giving usable vision.

Best of luck!

BTW, also have keratoconus, if you haven't had crosslinking done yet I recommend it. It's FDA approved now (I had it before it was, which is why I mention it) and seems to be more widespread these days but I've met others who have keratoconus who are unaware of the procedures available. I haven't had degradation since the procedure nearly a decade ago.

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