Laboratory for Retinal Regeneration
Project Leader
Masayo TAKAHASHI
(M.D., Ph.D.)
Deputy Project Leader
Michiko MANDAI
(M.D., Ph.D.)
Deputy Project Leader
Sunao SUGITA
(M.D., Ph.D.)
The retina has been called the "approachable part of the brain", owing to its relatively simple structure and location near the body surface. For these reasons, it serves as a useful and experimentally amenable model of the central nervous system. Until very recently, it was thought that the retina was entirely incapable of regenerating in adult mammals, but we now know that at least new retinal neurons can be generated after being damaged. This has opened up new hope that the ability to regenerate neurons and even to reconstitute the neural network may be retained in the adult retina. We are now exploring the exciting prospect that, by transplanting cells from outside of the retina or by regeneration from intrinsic progenitor cells, it may be possible to restore lost function of damaged retinas in a day. Our goal is to study retinal regeneration based on both a strong foundation in basic research and a solid clinical evidence.
- retinal cell transplantation
- induction of retinal cells from various stem/progenitor cells
- retinal regeneration by intrinsic retinal stem cells
- gene diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa
- relationship between photoreceptor death and environment in retinitis pigmentosa
- April 11, 2007
- The Laboratory for Retinal Regeneration of CDB in collaboration with University of Kyoto has developed a new method for the regeneration of injured retinas with drugs, without transplantation.
- Okita K, et al.:
"A more efficient method to generate integration-free human iPS cells"
Nat Methods. 8(5) 409-12 (2011) - Jin Z B, et al.:
"Modeling Pathogenesis of Retinal Degeneration Using Patient-derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells"
Plos One,6(2).e17084 (2011) - Jin Z B, et a.l:
"Identifying pathogenic genetic background of simplex or multiplex retinitis pigmentosa patients: a large scale mutation screening study."
J Med Genet 45. 465-72 (2008) - Osakada F, et al.:
"Wnt signaling promotes regeneration in the retina of adult mammals."
Neurosci 27. 4210-9 (2007) - Ooto S, et al.:
"Potential for neural regeneration after neurotoxic injury in the adult mammalian retina"
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 101. 13654-9 (2004) - Haruta M, et al.:
"In vitro and in vivo characterization of pigment epithelial cells differentiated from primate embryonic stem cells"
Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 45. 1020-5 (2004) - Haruta M, et al.:
"Induction of photoreceptor-specific phenotypes in adult mammalian iris tissue"
Nat Neurosci 4. 1163-4 (2001) - Hirami Y, et al.:
"Generation of retinal cells from mouse and human induced pluripotent stem cells."
Neurosci Lett. 458.126-131 (2009) - Osakada F, et al.:
"Stepwise differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into retinal cells."
Nature Protocols, 4.811-824 (2009) - Osakada F, et al.:
"Toward the generation of rod and cone photoreceptors from mouse, monkey and human embryonic stem cells."
Nat Biotechnol 26. 215-24 (2008)
Principal Investigator
- Masayo TAKAHASHI
- Project Leader
Members
- Michiko MANDAI
- Deputy Project Leader
- Sunao SUGITA
- Deputy Project Leader
- Jun KANEKO
- Research Scientist
- Akiko SUGA
- Research Scientist
- Chikako MORINAGA
- Research Scientist
- Chie ISHIGAMI
- Research Associate
- Satoshi OKAMOTO
- Research Associate
- Yuko MIBU
- Research Associate
- Juthaporn ASSAWACHANANONT
- International Program Associate
- Yu WATAOKA
- Technical Staff I
- Kyoko ISEKI
- Technical Staff II
- Kanako KAWAI
- Technical Staff II
- Noriko SAKAI
- Technical Staff II
- Akihiro TACHIBANA
- Technical Staff II
- Tomoyo HASHIGUCHI
- Technical Staff II
- Momo FUJII
- Technical Staff II
- Chikako YAMADA
- Technical Staff II