Specially treated stem cells derived from a single individual have been successfully implanted into that same individuals eyes in a first-of-its-kind clinical trial testing ways to treat advanced dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The therapy, currently in its first phase of testing to ensure that its safe for humans, involves harvesting and processing a persons blood cells and using them to replace the persons retinal cells that had succumbed to AMD, a leading cause of vision loss globally. The procedure was performed by researchers from the National Eye Institute (NEI), a branch of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and from the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. The NIH researchers have been working on the new treatment for a decade. The scientists, who previously demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of the therapy in rats and pigs, took blood cells from the patient and, in the laboratory, converted them into patient-derived induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.