Treatment Paradigms for Retinal and Macular Diseases Using 3-D Retina Cultures Derived From Human Reporter Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines

We discuss the use of pluripotent stem cell lines carrying fluorescent reporters driven by retinal promoters to derive three-dimensional (3-D) retina in culture and how this system can be exploited for elucidating human retinal biology, creating disease models in a dish, and designing targeted drug screens for retinal and macular degeneration. Furthermore, we realize that stem cell investigations are labor-intensive and require extensive resources. To expedite scientific discovery by sharing of resources and to avoid duplication of efforts, we propose the formation of a Retinal Stem Cell Consortium. In the field of vision, such collaborative approaches have been enormously successful in elucidating genetic susceptibility associated with age-related macular degeneration.