From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Sun Jan 06 2002 - 23:57:05 MST
I make no claims for the accuracy of this story...
Scientists claim to grow artificial eye Japanese team reportedly crafts
eyeballs from frog cells
TOKYO, Jan. 5 — Japanese scientists have succeeded in growing artificial
eyeballs for the first time in the world, Kyodo news agency said on Saturday.
A GROUP of researchers led by Makoto Asashima, biology professor at Tokyo
University, succeeded in growing eyeballs in tadpoles using cells taken
from frog embryos, Kyodo said.
“Since the basics of body-making is common to that of human beings, I think
this might help enable people to regain vision in the future,” Asashima was
quoted as saying.
The group, after soaking undifferentiated cells from the embryo of a
Platanna frog in a special medium, transplanted the eyeball into a tadpole
whose left eye had been removed before it was hatched, Kyodo said.
A week after the transplant, Asashima’s group confirmed the tadpole’s
eyeball was connected to the optic nerves and there were no rejection
symptoms, it said.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/682451.asp?0dm=B16MH
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