Lab-Grown Retinal Cells Show Promise for New Eye Therapies | Duke Pratt School of Engineering<br>Lab-Grown Retinal Cells Show Promise for New Eye Therapies | -->

Lab-Grown Retinal Cells Show Promise for New Eye Therapies

By Ken Kingery

6/30/26

Research<br>5 min read

Critical cells that line retinal blood vessels grown from stem cells restore retinal function in mouse models and form retinal tissue in a lab for future disease studies.

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Lab-Grown Retinal Cells Show Promise for New Eye Therapies

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to grow specialized blood vessel cells critical to retinal health for the first time.

When injected into mouse models of retinal disease, these “retinal endothelial cells” integrated into the damaged tissue to regenerate blood vessels and restore retinal function. Researchers also demonstrated these cells’ ability to form functional retinal vascular tissue in a lab-grown environment, providing a pathway to model and research various eye diseases.

The results, published online June 30 in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering and federally funded through the National Eye Institute and NASA, point toward the potential of using these retinal cells and models to develop new methods of impactful vision loss treatments and eye disorder research.

This image depicts a mouse’s retina suffering from conditions similar to diabetic retinopathy both before (right) and after (left) being treated with human lab-grown retinal endothelial cells. The green in the left image shows the human lab-grown retinal endothelial cells integrating into the damaged mouse retina, demonstrating their potential use to treat early stages of the disease.

“Retinal vascular diseases affect millions of people in the US, but our understanding remains limited, hindering our ability to discover and develop new therapeutics,” said Sharon Gerecht, the Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Duke. “Using human stem cells, we generated the cells found in retinal blood vessels, paving the way for new therapeutic approaches.”

The old saying that the eyes are windows into the soul is more accurate than one might think. Neurons from the retina—the back part of the eye that detects light—extend directly to the brain, technically making the eyes part of the central nervous system.

Also like the brain, the retina has a blood barrier that strictly controls what gets in and out such as oxygen, nutrients, water—and pharmaceuticals. While this barrier keeps the retina healthy and relatively protected from disease-causing agents, it also makes treating the retina difficult.

Using human stem cells, we generated the cells found in retinal blood vessels, paving the way for new therapeutic approaches.

Sharon Gerecht

Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Duke

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This barrier is formed by blood vessel tissue comprising a tight network of retinal endothelial cells, which form the inner layer of blood vessels, in concert with other specialized cells called pericytes and astrocytes. The specificity of these cells and the fact that they do not form in other areas of the body make the complex tissue difficult to heal or to grow from scratch.

“When this specialized blood vessel tissue begins to break down, it can cause a lot of different diseases that lead to vision loss,” said Parker Esswein, a PhD student working in the Gerecht laboratory and first co-author of the paper. “While there are sources of retinal endothelial cells, being able to grow a continuous supply from scratch could offer many advantages for those working in the field.”

These retinal endothelial cells are currently collected and grown from real patients, making them relatively expensive with a limited supply. To expand access, reduce cost and control variability, the Gerecht lab wanted to see if they could grow them from iPSCs. These are essentially mature adult cells reprogrammed to become primal versions of themselves that can then grow into a wide variety of other cell types.

This image depicts both healthy (right) and deteriorated (left) human retinal endothelial cells, which are essential for maintaining eyesight. The deterioration is caused by low oxygen and high glucose levels, mimicking conditions found in diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of vision loss in working-age people in the United States.

To do this, Ying-Yu Lin, a former PhD student in Gerecht’s lab, and Esswein took commercial iPSCs and used a well-established procedure to get them to grow into common endothelial cells that form the inner layer of most of the body’s blood vessels. The researchers then used a specialized cocktail of growth factors to coax the cells into becoming the specific type of endothelial cells found in the retina.

Once successful, the...